


Witness

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Self-Insert, from fanfiction.net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-12-19 00:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 60,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Fear is often temporary but grief has a nasty tendency to linger. How does a young woman from the twenty-first century deal with being reborn into a world infested with man-eating titans? An OC self-insert.AlltheAces deleted AlltheirFanfics so I'm reuploading this one. It contains 13 chapters and authors notes as they were in November 2014. If an update happened after the 20th of November, I apologise for not having it.As it is, I had to copy the whole thing to my notes and then email it to myself so I'm not gonna sort out the chapters. You can use Ctrl + F for that.





	Witness

Witness

by AlltheAces

Chapter 1  
This is a mildly AU, OC self-insert fiction about the world of Shingeki no Kyojin. Despite how clean the towns looked, I wanted to explore and depict the mechanics of a feudal society in the beginning stages of an industrial revolution, with limited access to some advanced technology.

I must say that writing these first few pages were something of an adventure, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

This chapter is unbeta-ed.

It was wrong.

It was wrong.

Warmth. Pain. Icy cold. Pain.

Ear-piercing shriek.

Wail.

Blurs.

Icy cold. Grey blobs. Larger grey blobs.

The dimensions and spaces were wrong.

Too loud. Wrong.

Louder wails. Close wails. Ice beats against face like falling into gravel.

Wrong.

Inhale ice, wails stop. Exhale, wail again.

Wait, what?

Something's not right.

Blink, blurry upside-down figure flips around completely. Grey blob becomes vaguely humanoid.

Blink again. Grey humanoid figure flips and flickers back and forth.

It's upside-down.

Wooziness.

Pain spreads across the back, pressure as the scratchy blanket digs into my tender skin. I've been handed to another blob.

How?

Where?

Wha-?

Warmth. The prickle of cloth scratches against my too-sensitive skin as I shift around.

Inhale, wailing stops. Hitch breath, and that all-encompassing siren isn't there anymore.

And without further ado, I passed out unceremoniously in the arms of the midwife to comforting murmurs in a foreign tongue.

My name was once Emma Roberts. Now they call me Lisa Martin. I was welcomed into the world on January nineteenth, the year '835' by the new calendar.

I was just glad that I couldn't remember exactly what had happened when I was born. What I went through afterward? That was almost mortifying and traumatizing enough to send me over the edge.

Diaper changes, burping, and breastfeeding…

Ugh.

I'll spare you the monotony of a baby's life. Moments of intellectual stimulation remained few and far between, compounded by the fact that I was separated from my new parents by a language barrier. I was both glad and annoyed that this young body needed so much sleep. Time passed quickly when I was unconscious, but aside from being carried around I wasn't really able to do anything except lay in the crib.

Until the milestones happened, of course.

Teething.

Joy.

Itchy gums aside, there was nothing to do. The all-encompassing boredom left little for me but sleep. So sleep I did, until I needed to be fed, or changed.

As I grew I noticed strange things about my new home, like the lack of modern appliances. Everything smelt earthier, more alive. And it was quiet in a way that only remote or rural areas could achieve.

I was surprised when I first saw a horse-drawn carriage. Mom and dad laughed at the exaggerated expression of bewilderment I had made as the animals plodded past.

Funny thing was, I never realized where I was until my family traveled to the nearby Shiganshina district to buy… something. I can't remember what it was, really.

But what I do remember was that when I saw the Walls, I cried.

I recognized them.

I recognized them and remembered.

I remembered a life where I was safe. A life where I had a stable job. A life where Attack on Titan was merely a story that I enjoyed reading.

I remembered that I died.

A large white pickup filling the windshield as I drove my car, a screech of tires when I was rammed into the center divider of the freeway, then nothing.

I cried harder, and my new mother and father were forced to stop the carriage to try to calm me down, quietly encouraging in their strange, Germanic language.

I tired myself out and quieted, and the carriage moved on.

When I roused myself into awareness a few hours later, I knew with painful certainty there was a greater than one-in-five chance I would die within the next decade.

I don't want to die again.

A year and a half flew by. I learned to toddle and began to absorb the language, helped along by the small carved toys father made. I babbled as babies often were wont to do, trying and failing to produce intelligible sounds. Mother and father thought it was adorable.

Studies in my old life had showed that children's brains learned languages much more easily than adults, but I didn't know if it would affect my learning curve at all. It might or might not have – it wasn't like my native language was spoken here, so I was forced to start thinking in Commons anyhow.

This new language was incredibly strange. The sentence structure was nothing like I had encountered in my past life and the characters most closely resembled the 'Wingdings' setting on my old typing program. And despite it all, Commons still sounded like German. Don't even get me started on the puns…

There were more than three ways to say she/they, all dependent upon the subject and verb conjugation. "It" and "eats"; "more" and "sea"; and "hate" and "have" kept being sources of frustration and embarrassment as I lisped my way through toddlerhood.

Another year passed, winter came through, and I, though still uncoordinated, was moving around much more easily. My tiny vocabulary expanded and saw me reading short stories and communicating in (very) basic sentences. Small bits of charcoal scribbled over leftover blocks of smooth wood helped my dexterity improve.

I was very fond of swirlie shapes and scratches suspiciously reminiscent of the English alphabet.

I was probably seen as an odd child by my parents. Quiet by nature, I made sure to behave myself as well as I could. I wasn't what one would describe as focused, but I did keep to myself.

Father was an open man, who was skilled in carpentry, commerce, and farming. He worked and cared for his family with a passion, his never-ending cheeriness continually lighting up our home and lives. He was also a favorite with the traders, keeping up with the news of the demand in the inner city and swapping speculation that was more accurate than not.

Mother loved us all in her cool and distant way, but possessed a kind of intelligent, logical fierceness that would overwhelm anyone foolish enough to harm those she called her own. She was an introvert, but knew how to work with people and organize plans with an efficiency that I had still been attempting to figure out in my past life.

We didn't live in an isolated area; Shiganshina was a two day travel to the west and we lived near one of the larger villages; a mere three miles from the edge of our property. We were incredibly fortunate to live here; it was one of the more peaceful areas in the outer wall, unmolested by the roving gangs and bands of bandits that plagued the outer ring. It was an agricultural and woodworking town without any major investors, and as a result was relatively poor. We were out of the way, off of the beaten path, known only for our cheap foodstuffs and rustic furniture.

But things were different here.

Instead of country borders, we had the Walls.

Instead of plumbing, we had outhouses.

Instead of medicine, we had superstition intermixed with steampunk-esque germ theory and tradition.

Tradition, I thought with a mental sneer, which killed the sister I could have had. I was around two and a half years old. The pain in mother's voice, the despairing screams from outside as the news was delivered...

The midwife had prescribed poultices of lemongrass and mint, and possessed a fist-sized ruby that she claimed would ease the pains of childbirth if held.

Before I died, I came from a first-world country. Waking up here was a shock - the contrast between the sterilized clinics I was used to and what we had now was shocking. I was sure it was different in the inner cities. It was common knowledge that they had better food, medical care, and living quality while we lived like serfs.

While our town was not necessarily the most geographically furthest from Mitras, we may as well have been. Any method of communication between us and the city was little more than a horseback mounted town crier. Maybe two, if the news was big enough or involved taxes.

We generally lived a comfortable life. We held a choice piece of farmland and were one of the major suppliers of food for our town. As a result we were, at the very least, tolerated by the general population. We were never truly accepted into the fold of the city, however; the village as a whole produced carpentry, woodworking, and other wood-based wares that took skill from years of painstaking effort. We were the 'odd' family in a town of individuals who had lived there for generations.

Our history didn't help our reputation, either. The mother who left Trost, the father with the deeply scarred face, the strange child with too-old eyes.

We might have been welcomed, yes, but we never truly fit in.

I always startled myself whenever I accidentally looked into the single small mirror hanging on our living room wall, with my childish face that looked so much like my mother's, with straight black hair and brown eyes.

Today was a balmy spring morning, around five years since the day I had been reborn. The skies had become clear, bright, and cool enough to work in without having to worry too much about sunburn or dehydration. Wind rustled through the two-week old grass, shaking the dew onto the ground.

I hauled a piece of wood toward my father, who was hefting an axe over the chopping block. I clumsily fumbled with the log and dropped it near the pile. My father stopped his steady chopping and looked over at me with a smile. As he ruffled my sweaty black hair, I smiled back at his sun-kissed Belgian features and straight brown hair, reaching for his scar-marred face.

A memento from a bear he fought, he said.

A voice called to me, over from the vegetable garden at the front of our house, "Lisa! Come here please!"

"Coming, mom!" I replied, grinning towards my father before I bolted away.

There was a man there. A brown haired man in factory-made clothes with a pair of round glasses on his face. He looked down at me with kind eyes, curious eyes.

"This is your daughter, Irma? She's beautiful."

His face was familiar.

Mother glowed with pleasure as she looked down at me. I felt my face smooth into comforting blankness, and my mother's smile faltered slightly.

I knew I didn't act like normal children (and how could I with these memories? It wasn't like I had another child to measure my intelligence and behavior against), and I knew that my mother knew, but we usually pretended it didn't matter. Right now, I couldn't bring myself to care. I had a more frightening thing to deal with.

Memories from years ago swirled around my mind.

"How old is she?" the kind faced man wondered, breaking the awkward silence I had inadvertently caused.

"I'm five years old, sir." I responded before my mother could. I felt myself vibrating with tension, and forced my uncoordinated child's body to stand as still as I could. I barely managed to limit my movements to several small twitches.

I remembered this man.

Mother hastened to apologize on my behalf without looking at me. "I'm sorry, she's so young, she doesn't understand."

He nodded agreeably and waved my mother's concern off. "It's no trouble. I have a son her age." He looked down at me once again, readjusting the briefcase he held in his hand. Something made of glass rolled around and clinked inside.

I watched his face darken briefly in thought, then lighten as if recalling something, before settling down into a kind, curious, almost analytical look.

"May I please…?" he trailed off, vaguely gesturing at me.

My mother nodded hurriedly before walking closer to me, kneeling down in front of me and placing her hands on my shoulders.

"This man is Doctor Yeager. He's a physician from the Shiganshina district."

Grisha Yeager. This man was famous here. Before I was born he almost singlehandedly quelled a plague that had decimated the population of the outer cities. He was a genius of medicine, cheapening treatments almost as often as he pioneered new ones. His tireless work had saved thousands of lives.

He also invented a serum that allowed Eren to shift into a Titan. Yes, I knew who this man was. I felt my throat quiver, but swallowed. Why? We were one family, thrown to the back end of beyond. Why did he come here and not some other family? This man was important in a way that the people here weren't. We weren't involved in making history. We were nobodies.

"What's he doing here?"

Mother smiled gently at me. "He says that has a drug that will keep you from getting sick."

I blinked, and memories filtered through my mind.

A giant shadow losing control, attacking everything within reach. A limb consumed by a monster and regrown. Harpoons from guns that had been speared out into too-light flesh stripped of all skin. Capture for study.

I shook my head. "No."

Near the fence, the man pulled a syringe from the container, a bottle of a cloudy liquid, and a bottle of a clear liquid.

"Lisa… For your mother, hmm?"

"No. He's too…" I struggled for a word, any word. I held my hand out to gesture towards something but stopped halfway. It was shaking.

Mother clasped my hand in her large one. It was warm, dry.

"He says it's been tested, but he needs have more proof before he can make some for everyone. Sharing a cure is a good thing, and he needs help from our family."

She sounded so honored, so happy. And why wouldn't she? To her, this was an opportunity of a lifetime – a chance to preserve her daughter's life. I looked at her face, fear drawing my brow together into a pinched knot.

And I shook my head no.

Human experimentation, though not entirely condoned by the monarchy, was still socially acceptable. I had read recent history books detailing how scientists determined similarity between diseases.

I had read about a Riker Smith who had deliberately infected the volunteers under his care with various diseases before exposing them to other, much deadlier ones after the initial infection had run its course. The story was unsettlingly familiar to a medical practitioner called Edward Jenner who deliberately exposed his patients to smallpox to test his theories.

Restrictions on trades, anything from mining to cloth-making really, were practically nonexistent. Medical technology was approached with a similar hands-off attitude, so long as a plague wasn't started by their actions.

My mind was screaming, shouting at me. Memories, both new and old, pleas for self-preservation.

I don't want to get involved with whatever he wanted. They fear- Attention was bad, even from a man – who turned his own son into a monster – from Shiganshina. Five years and we'll be dead. Don't give yourself more pain, you already lost everything. The doctor's here, girl! Wake up!

I shouldn't be here anyway.

I don't want to die.

Even though you know you'll probably just wake up again? It happened once, who's to say that it won't happen again? A traitorous voice hissed.

I felt like I had to run, but my feet were lead. Classic symptoms of a panic attack. Adrenaline made everything super-sharp and slow, almost as if a razor had carved out every shadow, edge, and nuance of the fields and forest around me. I was helpless as he drew nearer, mother's gentle grasp preventing me from turning away. The grass whistled. The plunger was pressed down on the syringe. The river hissed in the distance.

I later found out that he had learned about our family from a shamefaced whisper by an old man. A whisper that mentioned the family that kept to themselves.

That day I learned. People talked, even more than we knew.

And some people, important people, even deign to listen and act.

I had always expected to lose my sense of self after the Shot for some reason. Eren's memories were practically blocked out by the injection he received – why should I be any different?

As if mocking me, my old memories simply became clearer and more vivid as my new body aged. Perhaps I was simply overreacting and I received a dud shot. Maybe it didn't work.

I steadfastly ignored how I never seemed to get chilled anymore, even though I used to never go anywhere without my jacket and long pants. I didn't get sick when the cowpox epidemic swept through the town.

My parents smiled, and knew.

But they didn't, not really. They didn't know what was going to happen in a handful of years. They didn't know the full implications of doctor Yeager's research.

I never let myself become injured enough to draw blood.

I still wrote the important things down in English, a language no one knew, and passed it off as childish scribbles. I begged to learn how to make soap and stole baking powder to make toothpaste so I could follow my 'strange' hygiene habits from my old life.

And I was strange. There were things I did that set me as different from other people. Customs taken for granted from my previous life were totally alien here. I didn't accept the first gift I was given because I had no idea that it was the custom here to give and receive, even if you had nothing.

Little offenses like that set me apart even in my own home. They loved me, still. But they were aware that there was something different about me.

I would sometimes hum a song from my old life, and I would look up to meet the curious eyes of my mother.

Neither of my parents could carry a tune.

Years ago, before I had turned two, it I had been mourning the loss of everything I once knew without being able to communicate my grief to anyone.

Disbelief gave way to anger, and anger to desperation. Desperation turned to despair, and I was forced to turn to occupying my mind so I could accept the fact that I was no longer in my own world anymore.

I replaced some things that could be replaced, substituted other things that could be substituted, and accepted the loss of things lost forever.

I learned.

I learned from father how to coax the grain into stalks higher than the top of his head, and to draw the plants from parched fields with the irrigation ditches. I learned how to survive in the open, to snare, kill, and prepare animals for consumption. I learned to live outside.

I learned how to care for the wooden furniture, how to repair and make my own clothes, how to cook. I learned proper etiquette (don't make any physical contact, bow or nod your head in greeting), language skills (it's rife, not riff!), and how to care for our fruit trees. I learned to live inside.

I learned folk wisdom.

How when there was a cold to starve the patient and to feed him or her whenever there was a fever, that spicy food caused ulcers, and that a mother may lose her teeth to the stork for bringing a baby to the house (hah). That for a burning bladder, we needed to buy the red cranberries from the north city as soon as we could; failing that, to drink as much clean water as possible.

I learned about the politics, of how the corruption inside of the city was rampant, and of how the struggles of the average villager mostly consisted of where the next meal came from. I learned of finance, and of the religion.

And so we endured. My parents with their strange child that they loved; me with my strange family that I loved (but they were normal like everyone else, weren't they?).

I grew older.

There was school. A purgatory of filthy, screaming brats that fought, bit, and howled without ceasing. The harried caretakers attempted to watch a hundred of us, all of different ages inside one small room annexed to the city hall.

I informed my father of the situation, and I was taken out. I could still help with the light chores on the farm, after all.

A year passed, and they tried again.

It wasn't so bad at first, but when we were left to our own devices I was assaulted by a brat three times my size. An old self-defense class told me to step here, twist here, trip here, and the boy was thrown into a wall. I ran off into the crowd of students and met a girl. I told her to give me her calico jacket, and I threw my grey one behind an overgrown bush near the far side of the playground.

Her name was Fran.

Long haired, blonde, and blue eyed with a fondness for ponytails; she was a child. And as children are wont to do, she giggled, laughed, and played.

She was also an orphan.

"Meh, I can't remember my parents anyways. Hey, let's go steal all the chalk after the stories! That'll show Mr. Kreef!"

Mr. Kreef was the teacher.

I shrugged, plucking a blade of grass and sliding it between the pages of the small book I had stolen from one of the traders. Standing, I stretched and replied, "If you think you can. Don't wait for me to come save you when you get caught."

She shrieked with laughter and flopped down onto her back.

"You're always so sad, Lisa!" She suddenly jumped up, pointing at a small insect that was floating past on the spring breeze. "Come on, let's get you a ladybug!"

I sighed and jogged behind her.

At the school, we were taught the basics, little things.

We learned our numbers, our colors. We learned the seasons, and the years. We learned of our great king in the center of the city. Our wise generals who kept the walls guarded. Of our brave men and women who risked their lives by leaving and fighting the titans.

I never mentioned the fact that our walls had never before been breached, that the guards were cowards, that the king was an incompetent fat man who was drunk off of wine, sweetmeats, and his own popularity.

I returned home that day saddened, but knew that this was what made countries run and kept the populous in check.

Not that I was one to talk. But it was difficult, mentally, to live in a pre-industrial society when you had a college education.

(I had been indoctrinated by older, smarter people. People who had studied the mind for years and years. I still felt nostalgia for my old home, whenever I even thought of its name.)

But I lived. I had done so for five years, I would continue.

A half a year later I saw him again. Yeager, that is.

Father was relaying the tale of when he was forced to fight off a bear to save our three cows just as I walked in. Smiling happily at me, mother waved me to the table where she sat within arm's reach of the doctor. I obeyed with a frown and watched the conversation.

Eventually the story concluded with the bear running off, holding our newly bought shovel in between its teeth as my father chased it with a pitchfork. Doctor Yeager roared with laughter, and my parents joined in.

He asked if he could follow up on his tests, and they agreed.

"I have a son your age, you know," he began conversationally. I nodded and hummed in acknowledgement, watching as he pulled an empty syringe out.

"Yes, you'd probably be a good friend for him," he mused aloud. "He's quite the determined young man. He's been talking about heroes for the past month," he chuckled as he placed a needle into the empty glass container. "What do you want to be when you grow up, dear?"

I pursed my lips and didn't say anything. The doctor hesitated, surprised, then moved toward the crook of my elbow.

"Please make it fast?" I asked for the first time, screwing up my face in an unconsciously childlike preparation for pain. I always hated needles.

He nodded, and a tiny pinprick later he had what he wanted. I held the elbow tightly closed as I waited for my parents to conclude their business.

I held my peace until the doctor offered my parents a pouch that shifted heavily with the clink of currency inside of it.

I felt my stomach turn and drop to my shoes. I couldn't hold my surprise or disgust back as I pointed at the purse in betrayal.

"You did this," I hissed, "For money?"

"Not now, child." My mother ordered, pointing to the back bedroom we shared.

I howled in anger and fled into the back room. Before I reached the door, I heard Yeager quietly addressing my father, "…she's a very smart girl, Anton. Did she ever…?"

I slammed the door as hard as I could and jumped under my covers.

They scolded me later that night. I was told that since we had that money, we could now live more comfortably, that it was enough to live for half a year on. That he would always give us more money so I had a better life. So I could go to school, so I could become an inner city worker.

By the time my parents had finished talking, I was shaking in place. I stood slowly and walked outside of the house, making sure that my parents could hear me sit on the bench.

My arms slowly fell to my sides after I relaxed. I twitched them back into position as fast as I could – what if the vein was still bleeding? – but stopped when I didn't feel any pain.

Curiously, I scraped away at the crumbling scab. Only smooth, unscarred skin remained.

I may have given the thought of 'fitting in' a token effort before, but I was motivated to try my hardest to truly belong after that night.

Fran was an excellent measuring stick to judge what was and was not acceptable for kids to do at the time. Father may have looked at me strangely after I actually acted like a kid for once, but the trader never batted an eyelash at my 'childish' glee as I picked up and played with the tiny knitted animals.

Unseen by both adults, I slipped a blank journal and an ink pen into my pocket.

"…Lisa? Lii-saaa~?" Fran sang as I blinked awake.

Darn this childish body and its need for naptime.

"I'm up…" I groaned as I hauled myself upright. Today was the last day of classes, and Fran had dragged me to her favorite tree once again. "What's going on, Fran?" I groaned as I tried to stand up. Blood rushed from my head and I felt woozy.

"I can't believe it! They're giving us all bread for lunch, all because of the festival! You hungry~?" She teased and giggled. I shrugged and started to follow her after she turned and ran to the line.

It was year 841. I had four years until the Wall would be breached.

"Guess what?"

"Hmm? What's that?" I blinked. I looked down and noticed I was holding a piece of bread. That's odd, I was really out of it if I didn't notice her handing me food.

Ah well, Fran always was speedy for her age.

"Miss Amara came to the house today!" Fran chirped, racing toward the tall fence that kept us all inside. "Come on, Lisa!" I followed along, stopping when we reached the far corner. Fran huddled into a ball and waved me closer to her.

I nodded, settling down cross-legged. Sometimes these stories could go on forever…

"So, today our oatmeal was horrible, and I knew something was gonna happen!" She giggled sitting down with her legs splayed everywhere.

"Miss Amara comes in, right? She got us all into a group and told us to follow her to one of those old schoolrooms we're never allowed in!" She jumps in place excitedly. "She says we can grow up to be anything! She said we can be a doctor, or a, a fire-cart racer! Or a librarian!" she squealed in excitement. "But I don't want to do boring stuff like that!"

I laugh. "Boring stuff, Fran? Those are really good jobs for when you grow up."

"There you go again, Li-sa," she sing-songed and pouted. "You sound like an old person when you talk like that!"

I shook my head and snickered, deciding to humor her. "Then what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Fran's grin seemed as if it were about to split her face in two. She looked wildly around her to make sure no one was near enough to overhear her and then scooted closer to me for good measure.

"I thought, well, those jobs are boring!" She began animatedly, if hushed, "You just sit around all day and tell funny-sounding stories that are sad. So I'll do a job that's better! I'm gonna…" She leaned near my ear and I tilted my head closer to her, "join the army an' get into the Survey Corps!"

Oh.

Oh dear.

My voice was quiet, barely there.

"Why, Fran?"

"I told you, silly!" She giggled and leaned back, throwing her arms out, "It's the best job in the world! And I get to help people!"

Please, please no.

"But… you could…" I trailed off. Fran looked at me in concern.

Did she really realize the mortality rate? Did she even comprehend the fact that she probably would never come back?

"I'll help humanity! It's the best way I can!" She declared, and I felt my stomach sink.

…She really thought that it would help…?

Damn it. Damn this city and its propaganda. Damn it and its cowardly people. Damn it and its ideals.

"You really believe that…" I mused. I stood up and walked towards the building. Before I got too far, I stopped and turned towards Fran. Her face was wide-eyed, lost.

Oh. She had just told me her biggest secret, and I didn't seem to care.

I softened my expression and walked back towards her again, giving her a quick side-hug. She squeaked, scuttling off to the side.

"You know," I began, "If you truly want to go and do this, I can't stop you." Fran nodded, and was about to open her mouth to say something before I held up a finger to stop her, "Ah-ah! I'm not done!" She closed her mouth with a pout, some of her unquenchable happiness beginning to bubble up into her eyes again, "For my sake, please, please, please think of another job – any other, before joining up. Just in case."

Fran pouted, big blue eyes wobbling, "But all those other jobs are bo-ring!" She jumped up, "I want to be a hero and help everyone!"

"Please?" I wheedled, "Promise me? You can still be a hero at home, silly."

She sighed and pouted, "O-kay, you frowny-face. I pinkie promise."

She held out her pinkie for emphasis. With a solemn air, I reached forward and sealed the most sacred playground oath with the gravitas of a judge.

"Race you to the trees!" Fran shouted, bolting.

There was an abandoned well on the property.

That night, I took some of dad's new rope into my room and spent the next three hours or so tying knots for a rope ladder.

There was a thunderstorm brewing overhead - I counted myself extremely lucky for that as I walked to the old covered well.

Did I really want to do this? Is there even any guarantee that I could survive the next four years?

I hauled a plank of wood off of the opening and pushed it to the side.

I tied one end of the rope to the posed in the most secure way I could and threw the rope into the well. I heard the fabric slip against the stone walls and hit the dirt floor with an audible 'whap'. Looking around once more, I slowly lowered myself down.

The rope was knotted, and the walls were made of rough stone. There were plenty of handholds and footholds for me to brace myself against.

I quickly hit the bottom and walked towards the center. The clouds blocked out any light that may have reached down from the moon or stars, leaving me in near pitch-blackness. I shuddered and sat down in the middle.

Blinking my blinded eyes, I slowly drew my hand to my mouth.

And I bit down as hard as I could.

End

Did you know...?

According to Laura Helmuth's article, "The Disturbing, Shameful History of Childbirth Deaths," a common danger facing mothers was the risk of 'puerperal fever.' This infection was often caused by the unsterilized hands of the midwife or doctor. Sometimes, if the birth was exceptionally difficult or the midwive attending was suitably unskilled, the midwife would crack the skull of the baby, killing it but sparing the mother. Irma is very fortunate that her second child was merely stillborn.

I will keep my works cited page separate from FanFiction as having a Works Cited page constitutes as "Authors Notes" and would stand in violation of the Fanfiction terms of service. I can and will provide this works cited page upon request - send me a PM and I'll do my best.

I really appreciate feedback and jealously covet your reviews.

Chapter 2  
Well, this one turned out a little bit shorter than the last. Hopefully it'll be more streamlined and focused.

I would also like to publicly thank White Ink Penpal, who wrote the first review ever for this story!

*confetti showers everywhere*

This chapter is unbeta-ed.

I've been pushing this off…

Incisors sliced into flesh.

I've been too afraid to confirm the slightest possibility…

For a moment, everything was still.

But I need to fight for my second chance.

And I was numb.

I don't want to die!

A heartbeat passed in silence.

Then blood seeped from the wound, filling up my mouth with a coppery tang. I involuntarily jerked back, opening my mouth barely in time to avoid ripping more of my skin.

Nerves burned.

It hurt.

Stifling a shriek into a quiet whimper, I rolled onto my side. Pain shot up my arm and curled in my chest. My eyes streamed, and my hand throbbed horribly in time with my heartbeat. Instructions from an old first-aid class from my old life had me clamping my bleeding wound between my knees to try to stop the blood flow.

Of course it hurt – what did I expect, a brush of cool velveteen? I thought distantly, sardonically.

For the first time in almost three months, I felt chilled. Shock, I realized distantly. That's what I was feeling.

I keened quietly as the throbbing in my hand intensified.

I was exhausted by the time I had hauled myself up from the well.

How stupid – biting the hand that I needed in order to climb the rope.

The wound had begun bleeding again during my hurried exertions. I held it away from my body as it dripped, blinking in surprise at the steaming splatters of blood on the ground.

Well, I'm pretty sure that's not normal. I slowly gathered the rope, replaced the plank, and dragged my sorry carcass home while trying desperately to not drip blood on my clothes.

I wasn't a Titan shifter.

In all honesty, was I really so special? That a simple pinprick would have given me the ability to switch back and forth between a titan body at will? How many other people did Doctor Yeager have to test on before getting it right?

I stopped cold at the realization, an icy chill working its way down my spine.

Formulas never work out perfectly the first time.

I probably wasn't the first trial. There must have been others before me. We had rats in abundance, but Rhesus monkeys weren't native to Europe. There was a small safety net to the testing, but not to the same extent that 'first world countries' had access to.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a raindrop hit my face. I flinched as a jet of steam exploded from my cheek. I covered my head as more rain hissed against my overheated skin. I carefully made my way into the house without waking anyone. My hand pulsed in pain, and the heat radiating off of me left a halo of heavy, muggy air around my body.

Falling into bed with a defeated sigh, I held my wounded hand in front of my face and watched in fascination as the skin steamed, bubbled, and drew back together. It was surprisingly painless.

To make a formula this complex… It either spoke of a level of ingenuity on the level of Einstein or Hawking, or the determination of a sociopath greater than Josef Mengele.

I was leaning toward the latter with a generous helping of the first. Children copy their parents; Eren was a focused bastard even before his mother died.

But in all honesty, I was lucky that nothing major happened to me aside from the obvious. I was just a lab rat... A lab rat treated with a formula that lacked the five extra years of research that would go into the one Eren would have...

Five years of research…

I was so stupid. What if something had happened and I wasn't able to get myself out of that pit? A partial transformation I couldn't have gotten out of? Something that would have suffocated me in the dark?

I'll say it again - I was so stupid.

I groaned and slammed my head against the hard straw mattress.

Ow.

Now what? I wondered as I lay there, hand and skull steadily throbbing.

I probably wouldn't survive the next few years. I was living within a doomed wall that would fall to the titans, with only the unusable memories of a previous life to warn me of the coming danger. The series had only been in its first fifty-four or so chapters when I had gotten around to reading it. Besides, it's not like having any kind of regeneration could help my survivability – one well placed Titan hand or foot, and I'd be dead. I hated knowing barely anything more than the people around me.

I was spoiled with my 'higher education' and what little knowledge of this world that I had; I had been completing my Master's in mathematics at a university in the United States before my little accident had happened.

It was more about perspective, I guess. I was tired of living around people who, though smart, didn't know how to step back from the situation and think; who barely considered the option of asking why.

It wasn't part of the culture to question the status quo; it just was.

That curiosity was stamped out of them at the earliest opportunity.

Exhausted, I relaxed into the mattress as my temperature normalized to something barely under scalding. The wound closed completely, and I let my hand drop.

Life went on.

School ended, another expedition was made by the Survey Corps, and Fran had fallen even more in love with the idea of joining up.

I shook my head in exasperation at her excited babble as we sat in the shade of a tree at my house. I never really brought this up to anyone, but I felt that joining the military wasn't one of the wisest choices we had. Sure, we could learn how to use the extremely dangerous 3DMG, and we would have a reliable, well-paying job with benefits, but frankly, I preferred working a nine-to-five job and having the option of sitting in the shade with a good book or racing one of our horses through the forests or fields.

Case in point, I was curled up beside one of our maple trees, reading yet another book I had filched from the summer caravan.

One not-so-surprising thing about this place was that books were expensive. A horse was worth anywhere from thirty silver pieces to one gold piece and change, but a book? You could buy four books for the same amount as a horse, depending on the amount of paper it was printed on. It was remarkable that my parents even had those two thin children's readers in the first place.

Fran poked my shoulder, voicing her irritation at my lack of interest in playing tag.

I turned another page and ignored her.

Fran pouted, but then left me and ran off towards the house.

I had introduced my parents to Fran on the last day of school, and they welcomed her into our family with open arms. As it went, Fran had a lot of free time on her hands and the staff at the orphanage was chronically overworked. She was almost never noticed when she left, and since she wasn't a nuisance to society, the adults generally turned a blind eye to her wanderings around town.

And why should they bother? She was just an orphan and wasn't their problem. They had their own lives to worry about.

Farm work was hard, but Fran was more than willing to do what she could to stick around me and my family. It was cute, in a way, how she always hung nearby. It probably wasn't as surprising as it could have been – I was something of an older sister to her, and whenever I visited her at the orphanage the caretakers there were always preoccupied with keeping all children under the age of eleven fed, clothed, and somewhat warm. She had no concrete role model, and I probably fit the bill since I both appeared to be her age, while having the added maturity of memories from before.

I wasn't a mother in my past life, but I did know how to work with children.

As time went on, we worked out a kind of unacknowledged understanding – I would always keep an eye on her, and she in turn would help me out when I needed it.

She was inordinately useful as a distraction. She had the kind of mind that could adapt to most of the situations presented to her. I did my best to encourage those problem-solving skills, and it showed surprisingly quickly. She was a smart little kid, if a bit too naive.

I heard a high shriek of laughter come from around the corner of the house, and looked up just as Fran bolted past me. Father chased her with arms outstretched. Fran was holding a small rabbit.

The poor thing looked terrified.

I turned back to my book. It was frustrating, learning a new language after having two decades of experience with another. Having my expansive vocabulary rendered useless was not pleasant. It was humiliating sounding out words while my mother peered over my shoulder and corrected my pronunciation. Yes, it was an entirely new language, but I was a grown woman, I wanted to read, and read quickly.

Of course it turned out to be a very slow process.

I flipped the page, and looked at an illustration of a seven-meter class titan. A butt-ugly seven-meter class titan. The thing had stick-thin arms and a beer belly.

It was a history text. I was surprised that the trader had it in the first place, though we did have a small library in the town. I skimmed through the page. A breeze rustled the leaves of the tree I was sitting under. I looked up at the gently waving branches and sighed.

In the year 845, there would be an attack on the outer walls.

I had always done my best to make sure that my parents knew that for my tenth birthday I wanted to take a month-long trip inside of the second wall. In the summer, after the field was planted and the rains had come. I kept asking until they relented, thinking this was one of my 'strange ideas'.

The weather had been fair, with thick grass and flowers when the Titans invaded in the TV series, and it always snows in the winter.

I really hoped that what I remembered was accurate.

It had been... difficult to convince my parents, especially with the financial concerns that came with the full-time job of running the farm.

I had been reminded none-too gently of just why we never really left. Two years ago, just before I had gotten The Shot, had been one of the worst winters father and mother had ever gone through.

Ice a half meter thick covered the river, and new taxes had been a burden on everyone around the town. Overall, it had been a bad season for all of us - on top of that it hadn't been a good day – we had lost several of our year-old cattle to the below-zero temperatures, some of our fruit trees had fractured their trunks in the freeze, and a fox had gotten into the henhouse and killed my pet chicken.

The next growing season had been difficult. A drought had hit us, and most of the vegetable crops had failed. As it stood, we barely had made enough to support ourselves that year.

But life went on.

The sun was shining, the rains had come, and the wheat was growing quickly.

I stretched as I closed my book and stood up. Quietly, I wiped sweat off of my forehead and made my way back to the house. I guessed that the temperature was a 'cool' twenty-five degrees Celsius.

I never really felt the cold anymore after Doctor Yeager came and gave me his treatment. It was uncomfortable to put on more than two layers of clothing whenever I went outside in the winter, unless the wind chill dropped the temperatures into the negatives.

Fran always joked that I was a natural furnace, and that I should be sold as a house stove.

Summers, on the other hand, were brutal.

I was sure that we lived close to some huge body of water, maybe even a lake. It was the only explanation I could have for the humidity that bogged everything down. The horses would loll their heads under the few shade trees in their paddock while the birds wouldn't do more than give token squawks when their fellow brethren waddled too close on accident.

And the bugs.

Oh, the bugs.

Flies and gnats everywhere. And not the kind that just annoyed you, oh no. The kind that stung, the kind that bit, and there were quite a number that were venomous and moderately aggressive. The city never fared well either. The stench of refuse and unwashed bodies always cloyed the streets, and the trading business would come to a grinding halt.

I, with my unnaturally high body temperature, was not a happy camper. An old canteen that I had salvaged and patched up became my nearest and dearest companion whenever summer rolled around.

Speaking of my unfortunate plight, the good doctor generally made follow-up checkups with our family whenever the seasons changed. Springtime and fall, almost like clockwork. He would take a blood sample and store it in a small cold-chest, ask me or my parents some questions, trade local rumors and news with my parents, and then leave.

He always left a coin purse.

I pretended not to notice.

Things are different here, I would have to remind myself bitterly.

Bribery and silence money was par for the course in this society. Yes, there were the upstanding citizens that refused to condone bribes, but that was usually because they could afford to. The truth was that bribes were a necessity of life if you wanted any hope in living any less uncomfortably.

But that was only if you were 'lucky' enough to have a 'benefactor'.

I shuddered to think of what other families could be subjected to.

It didn't help that most of the successful individuals in the cities were men.

Money was always tight. Not enough so that it was impossible to make a living, but it was extraordinarily difficult to better your own standing in society simply through hard work.

Emotionally…

It was hard on me. Because of my previous life I valued freedom, or at least the illusion of it. I felt as if I were a piece of chattel to be bought and sold at leisure, and what made it worse was that this situation smacked of backdoor politics and illegality.

I would forgive my parents – it was hard not to when they cared for me so much – but I knew that I couldn't trust them to protect me from some things.

And yet...

I couldn't help but love them.

It was impossible not to, with how well they had cared for me and how they loved me unconditionally. I was fortunate enough to have been born into one of those few families that weren't dysfunctional. They may not have been my first parents, but it's hard to hate someone who helped you through all of those little milestones that we all take for granted.

Like toilet training.

But I was also, mentally, an adult. And as an adult, I valued my independence and the safety of having fallback options. I refused to simply let myself be swept away by my dependency on my parents.

End

Did you know...?

In the late nineteenth century, the lithotype and monotype machines became widely used in the book trade due to their efficiency and ease of typesetting. Whole books were typed on a typewriter and printed out this way.

As always, feedback is much appreciated. Please leave a review!

Chapter 3  
And so the saga continues! Welcome to the next installment, those of you who are new. And to those who favorited or followed my story, welcome back! Thank you for the support, I really appreciate it.

The following was initially a response to Kenegi's kind review, but is still good information for anyone wondering why Lisa's not planning on pulling modern inventions out of her rear end:

I'm basing the level of technology off of 1870's America, with certain exceptions because of the prevalence of 3DMG. Lisa's not introducing inventions like the smartphone because a: she has no idea how to make most of the things we take for granted nowadays, and b: supplies of 'modern' and 'pure' materials or tools are limited, expensive, or nonexistent.

Hopefully we'll see a little more character development in this chapter. Let the plot thicken! Happy reading. :)

This chapter is unbeta-ed - I'm still looking for a better cover image. Or a beta reader. Please message me if you're interested!

The end of summer came, school began, and I quietly looked to see what was in demand around town.

Food was always a stable market, but was extremely perishable unless canned or preserved. Clothes were necessary, but relatively expensive to make when I was faced with my (nonexistent) funds. I couldn't make my own cloth to sell to the tailors since our farm couldn't support cotton. We already sold fruits to the marketplace, and I wasn't strong enough in my seven-year-old body to seriously think about carpentry. Blacksmithing? Forget it.

That left trinkets, or a job in a service of some kind.

Not many people here wanted carvings because they could just make their own, but apparently there was a demand within the cities on the inner walls for figurines. The traders were extremely fond of original pieces, especially if they were good.

So I asked father to teach me how to whittle.

Never before was I so glad to have my rapid healing, even if father noticed the small spurts of steam on my fingers after I kept accidentally ripping them open.

He never said anything about it.

Time passed, and I slowly and painfully improved. The whittling tool was bulky, clumsy in my small hands, and sharp. More than once I had to wait for a few minutes as a deep cut on my hands bubbled shut.

My first piece was a simple toy horse. It was blocky, it was ugly, but it looked like a horse.

Dad was so proud. I gave it to him, and he placed it in the middle of his crafts table in the barn.

I always practiced after that; as a result there was a perpetual pile of wood chips on the porch. Mother always was frustrated with me whenever I left a mess on the floor, so she found an old metal pot that wasn't being used and gave it to me for the shavings. We used them as kindling.

My hunt for a job didn't go as well as I was hoping it to. In hindsight, I wasn't a good candidate in the first place, even though it wasn't unheard of to hire small children for factories or mines. The main issue was that we had neither in our village. Our town was a farming and woodworking town, so children usually helped out around the house or in the fields.

Which was great for our household and business, but left me with no way to generate income.

There was a small business for distributing the thin pamphlets that passed as newspapers, and there was a job opening at the local library, but they were looking for children aged eight and older. I was six. I still applied anyway.

The town was small enough so that everyone knew each other, so there was no chance of successfully concealing my age. I just hoped that they wouldn't turn me away immediately. I waited a few days, but found out that an older kid from the orphanage had been selected. Despite how disappointed I was that I had been passed up, I had to admit that the boy they chose for the job needed it much more than me.

I still had a roof over my head, after all.

A half year later, I eventually had to give it up as a loss. I knew that there was a work shortage, but that was mostly in the cities. I was fortunate enough to be in a village that was able to support itself fairly well. The community was so close knit almost everyone knew who to give priority to, be they families with nothing or orphans that were trying to improve their financial situation.

In the cities, industrialism was highly valued and easily taken advantage of. I was so glad we weren't living there. It wasn't really a surprise that I, from a family that held a modest amount of land, wasn't really on the 'priority list.'

I worked on my whittling in the meantime, steadily improving my skills. If I could find someone to buy from me, it looked like it would be my only source of income for quite a while.

At school, we practiced our writing and reading. Dust and chalk perpetually stained the air whenever the windows were forced closed from the bad weather or cold. Our old slates were always dusty, even after we washed them.

Thunderstorms were extremely common as the seasons changed, bringing with it a depressing combination of rain, muggy weather, and hot humidity. Today was one of those days.

It was hard on all of the children to be cooped up inside. Fran tried so hard to follow the instructor, she really did, but after one too many letters she gave up and started scribbling over a corner of her slate in earnest.

I couldn't blame her. At this point, if I would have killed for a puddle-shallow drugstore novel. Or an instant-cool pack. that last thought actually made me pause and drool a little in longing. An ice pack would be so useful to have on days like this... But I honestly had no idea how to distill or purchase the chemical I needed to make one. Ah well.

I turned back to the purgatory of copying lines, and repressed the urge to just give up and take a nap.

The teacher tapped his papers against the desk suddenly, startling some of the snoozing children. He stood suddenly, and everyone blinked up at him sleepily.

Almost lazily, Mr. Kreef picked up the chalk, erased his previous lines, and began a new set of sentences for us to copy.

The class groaned as one, and my forehead hit my desk with a defeated thump.

Our town was generally self-sufficient enough that we could buy most of the things we needed for living there, but there were always some things we could only purchase in the nearby Shiganshina district. After much wheedling on my part, we brought Fran along with us on one of our rare trips to the city. Mother and father kept us nearby while they browsed the selections on the main street.

It was about an hour before sunset when it happened.

A mutter, then a shout ran through the crowd. Many turned, then all of a sudden it seemed like everyone in the city started to rush toward the main street. Mother and father had wandered towards the far side of the way, and as a consequence we were separated by a stream of humanity.

"Lisa! Liii-saaaa! They're here! I can't believe it!" Fran squealed. I could still see my parents, so I didn't protest more when she grabbed my hand and hauled me with the press of people closer to a building.

"What's going on?" I called over the chaos around me.

Everyone seemed to have shifted forward in anticipation, craning their necks over shoulders and heads to get a better view. Somewhere far to my left I could hear raised voices as a fight broke out.

"Didn't you hear?" Fran called over the pandemonium, "The Survey Corps are coming! I can't wait to see them!"

Oh. That'd do it. I sighed, but the sound was swallowed up in the crowd. Of course she would get excited about this. Ah well, this was probably the only time we would ever get to see the Corps, I might as well get us to higher ground for a better view.

"Hey, follow me." I tugged her hand, and we ran towards one of the buildings. I helped her get onto the fence to climb up on the roof. I filched some green wood that had been left outside to use as a stool and jumped up to the roof as quickly as possible. By the time I had gotten settled next to Fran, the attitude of the crowd had shifted. The crowd's noise swelled to a dull roar that filled the air as the people below us looked around in curiosity.

The first horse came around the corner, and I was surprised to see the wrinkled face of Commander Keith Shadis and the blond head of Second - in - Command Erwin Smith. Right behind him was Hange Zoe, Mike Zacharias, and Levi. I blinked and almost did a double-take.

Levi was even tinier than I thought.

"Ooh~! So coooooool!" Fran squealed in delight, leaning forward eagerly. I watched the procession silently.

Some people in the Corps talked quietly amongst themselves. Some joked around cheerily, while others proceeded with solemn faces. It was painfully obvious that the only ones that looked happy were the youngest. On the other hand, one or two looked a little bit off-color.

I nudged Fran, and she snapped out of her starry-eyed contemplation of the stream of humanity. "That one looks like he's gonna hurl," I say, carefully deadpan, pointing at a recruit that had colored an interesting shade of green.

Fran shoved me and scowled.

The crowd's reactions were varied. I could hear a few people muttering among themselves that the expeditions were a waste of money and lives. That every time a squad came back defeated, it was another victory for the Titans. Others cheered for family members, and waved them off happily, oblivious to the incredulous looks they were drawing from some of the people.

Most were silent.

I watched with morbid fascination at the wide tapestry of emotions that weaved beneath me.

Despair, sadness, indifference, elation, fear, queasiness, and blankness played across the features of civilian and soldier alike. Fran simply watched in wonder, tales of heroics, bravery, and adventure staining her perceptions perpetually rosy. I could only be grateful that we saw them leaving on an expedition and not returning.

"They're so brave!" Fran sighed. I sighed and shook my head, not sure whether to be grateful for her naivete or exasperated, and stood. Ignoring Fran's protests to come back, I turned towards the edge of the roof where we had climbed up. I looked down at the procession one last time, and my lips thinned. "I'll be with dad."

"Alright you meanie head…" She scolded me, eyes glued on the procession of soldiers below.

I jumped off of the roof.

A few weeks later, Fran and I were asked by mother to go gather some necessities from the village general store.

I found myself standing still, the way in front of me blocked by a stubborn cat sitting directly in my path. It was a black cat. It had green eyes. With great care, the cat delicately lifted a paw and began licking it.

I, with great care, began to toss a fist-sized rock up into the air and caught it without looking. And I did it again. And again.

"You know, it's not nice to threaten animals." Fran muttered somewhere behind me to my left.

We were in one of the quieter streets, trying to make our way home with our purchased necessities. Like toilet paper.

I hated this world's TP with a passion. We were so far away from the factories that produced them, we would get the ones with the lowest quality. Sometimes the rolls would still have splinters embedded in the paper.

Well, at least I could say that living in this world was always an adventure…

"I didn't throw a rock," I said as I kept up my rhythm.

"Maaah, you're thinkin' about it…" Fran yawned.

The cat, now done with grooming its paw, stood up. Then, while looking at me and with deliberate slowness, began to walk across my path.

In a flash, I threw the rock in front of its nose. The feline puffed up like a bottlebrush flower, hissed, and bolted in the opposite direction. Fran glared at me in disapproval.

I looked back at her with a carefully neutral expression. "I've had enough bad luck this week. I don't want to tempt the fair Lady."

"Lady Luck doesn't exist." Fran groused, holding some of the food that we had picked up.

I began mentally ticking off fingers, "Tell that to my torn jacket, my ruined carving project, the concussion, broken arm, broken leg, and broken back; the ruined textbook, writing slate and stylus, the shattered blown glass bottle from trader Nichol, my irreparable pair of boots, the broken cart, and that Garrison soldier's 3DMG." I snapped, waving my previously broken arm in the air for emphasis.

"Hey, at least you healed up after the horse threw you onto that pile of farming equipment." She replied, ever optimistic. She cracked her neck and continued thoughtfully, "And the 3DMG was just lying out there in the open. How would you know that the cart would run over it?"

I blinked. "…That's not the point. But now that you mention it, I had no idea that a supposedly sturdily-built cart even could fall apart if it hit something that size, did you?"

Fran shook her head. "Nah, not really." A beat of silence. "Hey, isn't that Jack?" She pointed down the street. I shaded my eyes and squinted through the afternoon glare. Sure enough, there was a tall man in his mid-twenties scowling in our direction and heading straight toward us.

"Yeah. He looks a bit pissed."

"M-hm. Hey, doesn't Jack have a black cat?" Fran mused. I snapped my eyes toward her.

"…Yeah…?"

"A black cat with green eyes and a chunk missing out of its left ear?" She continued, ignoring my growing discomfort.

I felt my stomach sink.

"And didn't you just throw a rock at a black cat with green eyes and-?"

"Shut up and run." I cut her off.

I absently noted that Jack's face was coloring a rather vivid shade of mauve as he came closer. "WHAT THE HELL WERE YA DOIN' TO MY CAT, YA DELINQUENT LITTLE SHITS?!"

We bolted for the nearest alleyway, our grocer's bags banging against the frames we were using as backpacks.

Doctor Yeager didn't show up that fall, but a tall, thin man did come by and handed my parents 'compensation' without speaking more than the bare minimum for politeness.

I stayed out on the porch and whittled through dinner. I wasn't hungry, anyways.

No matter how I dressed it up, no matter how much I owed my parents for living here with them, it still felt like a betrayal on a fundamental level.

Yes, I was still judging them by my old ideas about human rights.

I began to carve a wooden shield with the Recon Corps emblem on it that night.

What I wouldn't give, I mused internally, for organization without corruption.

Fran once had complained that I hated the Survey Corps. That wasn't entirely true, but I could understand how she came to that conclusion. I never did have anything good to say about them, but then again I didn't really talk about the military much at all.

I sold the carving to one of the traders later that month. He had a son who joined the Garrison a few months back. He gave me enough money that I could have bought two piglets if I wanted to. It was one of my better pieces, but I was surprised to have received that much.

The money was summarily stashed behind a loose board in my room with the rest of my savings.

I had been collecting money for the past half year. My carvings normally were rustic, chipped baubles, but I really wanted to carve complex models of animals with details so fine the eyes would seem to follow the observer. I also sculpted rough approximations of vehicles and buildings from my past life. Those were the fun ones to make, but I could only sell them to the traders with a reputation for 'queer articles.'

They loved them.

Perhaps I could start a business building dollhouses. Maybe I'd even make a Seattle Skyscraper edition.

I wondered what the inner towns looked like. Probably like some mid to late Victorian city – most of the people here were white, now that I thought about it. I put the thought aside and set down my carving tools, gazing at the emblem I had scored onto the trunk.

Asking around yielded various results, but I noticed that the buyers in the city were interested in original pieces supporting our military, decorative animals, utensils, or pieces depicting the Wall emblems.

A memory of a Wall Cult acolyte screaming his agenda at the crowd flitted its way past my mind's eye and I scowled.

Plot advancement scapegoats the lot of them, and a bad name to any organized religion besides. A saying used during the second World War at home echoed through my head: "Loose lips sink ships."

Good mood gone, I roughly gathered my supplies and returned to the house.

The sun beat down on our heads as we worked steadily in our herb garden.

It was spring. I had turned seven two months ago. We had gotten a recent rain shower, and the plants in our garden had matured enough that we could tell the difference between weed sprigs and the good plants. We took liberty of the advantage to pull out the weeds, and our efforts had begun to pile up beside us.

"Dad?" I called over a couple of large bushes of anise, tugging a small malva sprig loose.

He grunted as he stood up, turning around to face me. "What is it?"

"What was it like before the Walls?" I asked.

Dad was silent for a moment and then said, "No one really remembers, dear. Even I'm not entirely sure."

"Oh." I replied, disappointed. Apparently even that had been forgotten. Father shuffled around on his hands and knees between the plants, plucking weeds with deft, calloused fingers.

"There are tales," he began, "of undrinkable lakes so wide you could never see across them and of mountains of salt piled on their shores. There are dead lands as far as the eye can see, where the sun scorches the earth, and the moon freezes it. There are lands with mild winters, where it never snows."

He sighed then, deep and heavy with longing. He turned towards me. "But our land's fertile, it's spacious, and it supports us. I'm satisfied to be here." He finished with a smile at me before turning back to his work.

"I was curious about the outside, before." I knelt again, listening to my father speak as I worked. "I always wanted to join the Recon Corps, but my father prevented me from going. Said it was too dangerous," he laughed, and threw a weed onto the pile behind him. "He was a miner you know, so the irony wasn't lost on me. They didn't have nearly as many safety regulations then as now."

I hummed in response. I was stopped at a particularly stubborn weed. My scrabbling had made my handhold at the base of the growth slick with plant juices, so I scraped some of the soil away and tugged with all of my weight.

"So I ran away from home and walked to Trost," he continued, brushing soil off on his pants as I futilely tugged at the weed, "And the fool I was, I didn't pay attention to the weather patterns. It seemed clear that day, but I walked for five hours, barely hit the path leading to the city. Boom! The heaviest rain you could think of starts falling. Your poor old father never stood a chance."

I shook my head and snorted in amusement at the mental image, finally pulling the weed out of the ground and throwing it onto the pile to be burned. "Well, you obviously didn't die. Who dragged you out of the rain?"I asked.

"Well, since I looked like a poor drowned puppy a small family of merchants who were driving by volunteered their cart since we were heading the same way," he chuckled.

Drowned puppy? I mentally scoffed. "Meh, you probably looked like a soaked rat!"

My dad mock-scowled and flung a small clod of dirt at me. I flinched backward with an evil snicker. "Ungrateful brat," he groused, giving me the stink eye. "See if I tell you what happened next."

I rolled my eyes and turned back to my work. Dad sighed and shook his head."I think you'd be interested in this," he teased me.

"Really? What oh-so-amazing thing would have happened?" I grumbled as I tidied up my pile, "A puma comes and runs you all over? The horse gets spooked by a stray breeze and runs away? Bandits come from nowhere and attack you in the middle of one of the widest stretches of fields within the Walls? You finally get those scars you're so proud about?"

He shook his head 'no' with a small smile and I sighed.

"Then what happened?" I whined, impatient.

"We were attacked, yes, but by something no one expected."

"Then what was it?"

"Oh, just a titan," He sniffed dismissively.

End

Hah. Boom.

Did you know...?

Yes, according to Quilted Northern the process for making toilet paper did not remove all of the splinters from the roll until the 1930's. Ouch!

Reviews make me happy. I adore comments and criticism!

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Am I taking this too quickly? Are the chapters too short/long/ponderous? Is there anything that might need explaining? Please leave me a review!

Chapter 4  
A new week, a new chapter. I want to start writing some action scenes soon, but the setting I have right now won't allow for much realistic physical conflict.

I'm beyond honored at the response all of you have given this story! I'm really enjoying writing this, and I hope that everyone here continues to be entertained by my contribution. I'll do my best to update weekly from now on, as time and creativity permits.

This chapter has been betaed by the wonderful White Ink Penpal!

The weeds in my hand slid through my limp fingers. "You're lying."

He grinned and raised his hand, "Honest to Maria truth," he swore with a smirk.

My mouth snapped shut. "H-how did you survive?"

"We almost didn't." He shrugged. "The horse saved us; we were barely able to outrun it. But you know the strangest thing?"I shook my head and motioned for him to continue. "The Titan just… disappeared."

Crap. Crap, crap, crap, this wasn't supposed to happen until after the walls had been breached. "What did it look like?"

Father hummed. "Well, it was small and fat, probably a four-meter class. It looked like a deformed baby."

That was not good. "How did it get in?"

Dad shrugged. "I have no idea. We tried to warn the guards of Trost, but they wouldn't believe us. They said we were drunk," he groused, irritated at the hypocrisy. He then sighed, suddenly weary. "They never found the Titan, but we knew what we saw. There was this… huge lightning strike within two hundred meters of us, and then the Titan was just there."

I stared at my father, wide-eyed. There were even more titan shifters?

Father chuckled. "Ah, don't look so scared. No one's ever seen it since."

I blinked, and relaxed my face with a scoff. "I've got to admit, that sounds pretty stupid," I deadpanned offhandedly, giving a token snort as I turned back to my work. I called over my shoulder, "If you're going to lie, at least try to make it sound entertaining. You know, like the bear one."

"Hey, that one is definitely true! Your mother even saw it happen!" Dad protested.

"Yeah," I agreed, "It was a potato sack on the upper floor of the barn." I conjectured, "It just so happened to be shaped like a bear and a rake was leaning against it. You shut the door too hard one day and..." I whistled a descending tone, holding my thumb out and imitating a falling missile. "Thwack! You get a pair of pretty parallel gouges and a story to tell."

"…I'm injured that you would say such horrible accusations to my beautiful face." His pout grew in size and he sighed dramatically. "Where did I ever go wrong in raising you?"

I snickered. "Probably right at the beginning when you got mother pregnant."

Father choked and nearly dropped the weeds he was holding. My lips twitched, but I schooled my features as he whirled around to face me.

"Who told you things like that?!"

I blinked slowly, innocently, "You mean that's not what happened? That's what all the kids at school say…"

I was treated to the rare sight of my father caught flat–footed. I let him flail for a moment, but in the end I couldn't help it. I snickered, and watched as dawning realization crept on his face.

"You brat," he scowled, "Playing me like a fiddle."

"You know me, dad," I began, gathering up the pile of weeds I had plucked. "Always a little horror 'till the end."

"Isn't that the truth," he snarked, and gathered the weeds into his arms to be burned. "But I want to know who told you these things, young lady."

I grimaced. "Uh-oh."

Father grinned in triumph.

We were doing math today. Multiplication and long division, to be exact. We were adding up all of the values by hand, and memorizing the answers.

When I heard about the busywork I was about to be subjected to I slammed my head against the desk. Hard. Fran looked at me in concern. "…Lisa? You alright?"

I gave a long groan from my seat. "…No. And I won't be, if I have to keep doing these stupid, idiotic, moronic exercises I've mastered years ago!" At the end my voice had risen to a hoarse yell, and the class turned dead silent.

As one, many of the students turned to look at me as I blearily peered out from behind my bangs.

"…Damn it." I swore under my breath.

Not quietly enough, apparently. The teacher scowled at me. "Language, Lisa. Since you seem to have mastered this material, why don't you come up here and teach the class?"

I blinked and then a small smirk stretched across my face.

That day would become one of the fondest memories I would have of that little town. Because of my implementation of 'multiplication tables,' most of the children there understood the fundamental concepts of multiplication and division within three days. The teacher, of course, took all the credit, but I didn't care. We moved onto studying our sparse history after that.

Mother and I worked tirelessly on the bread we were making for market day tomorrow. Her straight black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her green eyes and aristocratic features hovered regally over the dough she was kneading. Wheat flour filled the air, highlighting the sunbeams that streamed in from the windows. We worked in companionable silence, listening to the birds twitter in the trees outside.

I sighed, brushing some of my hair that had escaped from my ponytail behind my ear. I reached for more flour to add to the bowl, then turned towards my mother with a frown. "I've always been meaning to ask, why did you have Doctor Yeager give me the shot?"

Mother kneaded the dough in front of her for a few minutes before turning towards me with an unreadable expression. "I thought we've been over this already."

"We did," I agreed, "but I want to know why, not because of the utility. There's never been a permanent cure for so many diseases before and at the same time. It sounds like a scam. So why his?"

Mother turned back to her work, slapping the dough against the counter. "Doctor Yeager is well-known, and his work is used as the basis for research in the capital. I knew we could trust him."

"We don't have that many doctors out here," I mused aloud, "or talk to any professed medical specialists besides Yeager."

She sighed, suddenly tired. "You're a very perceptive child, but you keep assuming you know everything," she admonished me. "I've been living for much longer than you; I've heard about more things than you'd really know about. I've never told you where I was from, have I?"

I blinked in surprise at the change in topic. "Trost, right?"

"Yes, but that wasn't always the case." She brushed excess dough off of the counter and tossed it into the compost bucket. "Have you heard of the Hermiha district?"

I frowned, "Yeah… What about it?"

"I was born there."

I blinked. Then I realized that the dough in my hands was starting to stretch, so I turned, placing it back on the counter and added some flour to it. "Really?"

Mother smiled as she continued to knead her dough. "Yes, I was raised an 'inner city snob,' as your little friend so loves to put it."

I grimaced, embarrassed, looking over my shoulder at mother. "Fran didn't insult you, did she?"

Mother shook her head. "No, but you could tell her to be more careful with how vocal she is about her opinions."

I nodded and turned back to the bread.

"I let him give you that treatment because I feared for your health," she began, sprinkling more flour onto the counter. "I didn't want you to have to suffer those diseases that are so rampant out here." She finished up the loaf, setting it inside of a pan to rise. "I had heard of his work, and even the naysayers had to acknowledge his utter brilliance in his field."

"High praise," I mused aloud, tossing the dough into the air a few times to loosen up the knots in my shoulders.

Mother lifted some more dough and began kneading it over the flour dusted counter. "Indeed. He is one of the few that have the capability to serve the king in his court, but the selflessness to serve the people instead."

I fell silent, digesting this information. "Who was your father, then?" I asked, after a few moments.

She shook her head and smiled, "No one special, just another minor noble trained in the ways of commerce and banking. But Grandfather, however..." she trailed off with a faraway look in her eyes. "He was a great man and the only one worth mentioning, though he wasn't necessarily a loved leader. He is no more than a memory in the minds of the people there, but its best not to bring him up in polite company."

I lifted my bread and placed it into a pan, covering it with a towel and leaving it near the oven to rise. "Oh. So, you don't want to talk about him?"

Mother shrugged and shook her head no. "Not necessarily. It's good for the children to learn from the folly of their ancestors. You'll make fewer messes that way."

I nodded in complete agreement as I gathered more dough to work on. "So, what happened?"

"He was a particularly intelligent man, who could find or invent flaws in any argument if he put his mind to it." She stopped working the dough for a moment and tapped the counter twice, deep in thought. "He was a very affluent politician, with a particular weakness for power."

"Power? What kind?" I asked, sprinkling more flour over my workspace.

"Any kind," she clarified. "But political power, mostly. He was addicted to being in charge, even to the point of developing fraudulent charges against his competitors to discredit them."

I pursed my lips and slapped the dough a few times, trying to shape it. "Oh. Who finally stopped him?"

"No one. He had too much influence. Frankly, if someone killed him, the whole financial infrastructure for two cities would have fallen," she stated, working steadily on the dough.

I chocked in surprise, "Two?" I asked incredulously. That was practically equal to the power of a prince!

"And a half more besides. He had investments in the Yalkell District."

Amazing. I shook my head and tossed the dough I was working on into another pan. "So, why?"

"He retired, split his investments twelve ways, and gave the reigns to someone else. He said it was time to leave after twenty-seven years of service to Wall Sina." She shook her head and inspected the dough she was working on, adding some more water to the mixture. "You'd think a move like that would have crippled the economy, but he knew money and people well enough to ensure that nothing went wrong. We all disappeared within a few years."

"Who did?" I asked as mother stopped working on her dough and turned towards the pile of pans she had left on the counter beside her.

"My relatives," she continued, selecting and lifting a couple of pans out of the pile. "Our family might not have been rich, but we were still targets. Some factions wanted us gone or wanted petty revenge on Grandfather for his policies. Grandfather may have been untouchable – he was still popular with the cities even after he retired – but the rest of his family, not so much."

"Huh. Why?" I asked, tossing my thoroughly worked–over dough into a pan.

Mother turned back to the mixing bowl, replying, "Quite a number of them took advantage of father's position and power to a great extent, especially the protection being under his name provided. They were… bitter. Nowadays, to be called a Nagy - his last name - in one of the inner cities is comparable to being called a wasteful pig."

I frowned and stepped over to her workstation, filching the last of the dough from her bowl before replying. "So you moved to Trost."

Mother nodded as she pulled more dry ingredients together and mixed them. "It wasn't so much as a decision on my part than it was on your grandmother's. I wanted to stay in the inner cities, but there were more than enough people left that still wanted us dead that it'd have been more trouble than it was worth."

"That's too bad. So you lived there for a while?"

"Yes, it was there I met your father." She said as she added the liquid ingredients and rapidly whisked the mixture into a thick paste.

My eyebrows rose, remembering father's tale from the day before. "How?"

"Well, it was during one of those summer storms, a bad one. Lightning everywhere. He came in with some traders. They were running from something, but that's his story to tell." She shook her head in amusement, and tossed the dough lump in her hand a few times experimentally. "To be honest, when I first saw him I wasn't impressed; all gangly limbs and large jaw. He said he wanted to join the military."

"He told me about it."

"Ah, I can hardly believe it myself, you know. A Titan? In the fields?" She chuckled and turned back to her work.

I hummed in agreement, but inwardly frowned at the reminder. There were Titans inside of the walls, weren't there? The rhythm of kneading the dough had filled my arms with a slow burn, and I stopped to rub my wrists.

Mother continued, "Anyways, for some reason he was turned away by the recruiting office. He never said why, but I understand it was one of those years. Command had been recently changed around, and though they still had regulations the officers there were trying to see how far they could push the new head. It didn't last long – he had the offenders publicly humiliated, stripped of their rank, and sent back to the training squads."

I snickered, imagining a similar look on some of the local garrison officers.

"Your father had had enough of getting the runaround by then. He had tried to get in for a year, only to be turned away each time." She scoffed, her eyes narrowed and spiteful. "Lot of fools they were. He said he wanted to join the Survey Corps – he had the physical and mental constitution for it, too. They needed men like him."

My eyebrows rose in surprise. "Really?"

"Yes, but I'm glad he didn't go. We began seriously considering a relationship about a half year after he gave up trying to get into the military. He'd begun a thriving carpentry business and was earning enough to potentially buy a new property within the district in five years or so. He has a way with money, and my parents were all too aware of that fact."

I frowned, "Ah. Were they money-conscious type?"

"They were bankers by trade, though by that time they were more like loan brokers. A risky business, but a profitable one nonetheless. They saw stability in his preferred trade, and weren't opposed to me becoming associated with him."

The fire had been lit for some time. Mother grabbed a tray of the bread pans we had prepared and placed it on a table in the warmed air to rise. I hurried and followed suit.

"Then what?" I prompted, carefully setting the last tray down and wiping sweat from my forehead.

Mother took a deep breath and stretched her arms out in front of her, "Well, our relationship progressed at a slow pace," she began, dropping her arms and moving back to the counter to begin cleaning. "Three years later, and we still hadn't decided it was best for us to marry. And then the population began to drop from the plagues in the outer districts, and marriage began to be encouraged by the government. "

We both moved back to the counter and began cleaning the surface. I looked over at Mother in confusion. "They can do that?"

Mother shrugged. "Well, you know how father says the best way to get through to a man is through his stomach? Another way is through his wallet. Tax breaks were offered to newlyweds, and the property values near the outer walls had plummeted. We could have bought two of these properties with the money he had saved up, and still had enough left over to purchase several houses."

"And you two left, just like that?"

"Not really. During the plagues the gates were shut to refugees, and the land in the inner districts steadily became more expensive as fear spread."

I stopped picking up the utensils and used bowls. "They stopped trade and travel?" I asked, shocked.

"For at least a season," Mother confirmed, "Only doctors and the soldiers guarding them were allowed to travel between districts. There was little progress made on this plague until Doctor Yeager was able to isolate and create a resistance to the disease with his vaccines."

I frowned at the mention of the doctor's name, but a sense of reluctant understanding had begun to form in my gut. "So that's why…"

"I wasn't more hesitant to accept his offer. We were extremely fortunate that he chose our family."

We fell into silence, clack of dishes being gathered and placed into the wash basin filling the house. I looked out the window, then turned my attention back inside. "What made you both decide to move out here?"

"We eventually left of our own volition. We married, your father closed up his carpentry shop, and we bought this place."

"…But that makes no sense. He was a carpenter, not a farmer."

Mother shrugged with a sigh. "Farming turned out to be more profitable, and he knew how to farm. There's always a need for grains and produce, and it's a very valuable trade for humanity."

I kept washing the dishes. The wind blew through the thick grasses with a thin hissing sound, bringing some relief to the livestock lounging in the shade. I sighed and wiped sweat off of my forehead with the edge of my shirt.

Mother sighed. "I'm sorry that the treatment makes you suffer so much."

I shrugged and kept working. "What's done is done, and after all." I sighed. "I've never gotten sick yet, have I?"

Mother shook her head, picking up the rest of the measuring tools that I had left out and placed them in her cupboards. "No. No you haven't."

We had two horses.

I remember seeing them for the first time, when I was three years old and barely able to keep up with father and mother around the house. We were in the barn, on a cool spring morning. The mists had covered the sky and mountains around us, muffling the birdsong and chatter from our animals.

Belgian Drafts, father claimed proudly as he brushed through their short coats. Raised by my family from generation to generation, or as far back as we could trace it. Beautiful creatures, aren't they?

I meekly peered out from behind father's legs and stared up, up, up into the horse's enormous eyes and Roman nose.

I had been a city girl before I died. The only time I had ever run into one of these animals was when I was in the country. Needless to say, I was a little bit intimidated.

Go ahead, he urged me quietly. Pet his nose.

I timidly did as I was told, and the horse whuffled and delicately lipped my hand, looking for some treats. I pulled my hand back and jumped behind father with a squeak as he laughed.

The next day had dawned bright and early. I hurried from the house, black hair floppily drawn back into a long ponytail. In my hand was a feed bucket, with two long carrots on top of some oats.

I ran towards the barn, skidding inside with a huff. I trotted towards the wall, setting down my bucket and pulling a saddle and a blanket off of the pegs on the wall.

Whistling sharply as I left the barn, I hauled the heavy blanket and saddle between my arms and made my way toward the fence. Both Damien and William perked up their heads and trotted over to me, eagerly sniffing me for a carrot. I held out one juicy treat to each of them, and then set to saddling William up for father as they both munched on their food.

Father was going hunting today.

I had begged to follow along, to help collect the animals from the snares and traps, but one of our chairs had broken and father needed me to stay behind and fix it while mother worked on the fruit trees.

Damien nickered at me softly as I stood up from where I was drawing the cinch on the saddle. I gave him an affectionate pat on his forehead before hooking up William's reins to his bridle. Finishing the job, I clicked my tongue and led William towards the gate.

Damien lazily watched me go, turning back to the strenuous activity of grazing on the ground.

The lazy bum.

Once we cleared the gate, I swung myself up William's massive girth and rode him in a circle to warm him up. I always loved this part. The wind blew against my face, giving a welcome respite from the early morning heat.

Today was going to be muggy and hot. Despite the disappointment of not being able to go with my father, I was somewhat relieved that I would be able to stay near the house and not have to trudge through this heat.

William's breathing deepened, and I carefully led him towards the house.

Father was sitting on the porch with his overnight travel pack, and I frowned. Was he going to check all of the traps, and not just the most-travelled ones? I dismounted and handed William's reins to father.

He smiled benevolently down at me and gave me an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder. "Can I give Damien a ride around the property?"

"I don't see why not, as long as you come back before ten o'clock."

I checked the sky. It was around nine-thirtyish. I bolted back towards the stables, tossing a halfhearted goodbye over my shoulder as I ran into the barn.

Silence reigned after the school door had been forced open.

I raised my hands in surrender, making as innocent a face as I could manage.

"I had nothing to do with this, I swear."

We were in the village once again, just outside of the schoolhouse. The head teacher loomed over my tiny seven-year-old frame, and mother 'tsked' disapprovingly.

"Really…" Mother drawled, rolling her fingers on her crossed arms. "Just like you had nothing to do with leaving the butter out on the counter at home? Or the time when the cows escaped into the town? Or when our cart was ruined?"

"Hey, the cart wasn't my fault!" I protested. "It was a complete accident!"

Mother rolled her eyes. "I'm sure. Besides," she continued, turning towards Fran, "I know you both are far, far too innocent to even think of wrapping all of the furniture in the classrooms with butcher paper."

Without missing a beat Fran replied, "I have no idea how that might've happened."

"Uh-huh" Mother turned toward me to ask, "And stringing the doors together with rope?"

"Must have been those delinquents. We've been having issues with some gangs recently…" I mused, keeping my face as straight as possible. As if to punctuate my statement, a group of well behaved children quietly walked back to their homes from the local library. I recognized a few as the daughters of a local merchant.

"I see." The schoolmaster said.

A beat.

I sighed in defeat, and mother and the schoolmaster gained varying expressions of triumph.

"…Fiiiiiine, I'll clean it up. C'mon, Fran…"

"Mmkay!" She cheered, bolting into the house. Paper tore, and rope and shredded scraps alike flew through the open door. "Wha-HOOOOOOO! PRESENTS!"

I laughed nervously at the incredulous look the teacher was giving to me and bolted into the room.

It was too good to last.

It all started with a cough.

Father collapsed in the fields in the last weeks of summer. He hadn't been breathing easily for the past month. When we tried to help him come back to the house, he tried to talk but began wheezing so badly that I pushed mother to away so she wouldn't catch what father had, leaving father to his coughing fit on the ground.

It was a stressful time for all of us; the harvest was about to begin, and though I was old enough to begin assisting in a more useful capacity I couldn't yet make much of a difference. Father remained in bed for the better part of the day, barely mustering enough strength to lever himself to either reach for a nearby cup of water, or to relieve himself.

I cried myself to sleep for the first time in three and a half years.

A few weeks later when Doctor Yeager arrived mother begged him to take a look at father before he did anything else. He agreed and immediately set to work. I and mother left the room to give father some privacy.

Sometime later he came out of the room and shook his head, taking mother outside to discuss the situation in hushed whispers. I went back into father's room and sat next to the bed.

Irma, face drawn tightly, sat stiffly on the wooden bench on the porch.

"Doctor..." She began, but trailed off.

Grisha drew his hand across his face and sighed. "I'm afraid it doesn't look good."

Her face fell, and she motioned for him to continue.

"From what I could see, he has a dropsy of the chest."

Irma clasped her hands on her lap, looking over the fields and avoiding Grisha's eyes. "One that spreads?"

"...Yes. I understand your daughter was exposed to him repeatedly?"

Irma blinked, and an unreadable expression stole across her face. "She physically stopped me from caring for him."

"Interesting."

Irma breathed deeply, then released a shuddering sigh. Her long fingers clasped on her lap trembled slightly, but she exhaled and forced them still.

Irma blinked, and her face smoothed into blankness as she turned to face doctor Yeager. "Is there anything we can do here for him?"

Grisha shook his head gently, spectacles flashing in the dying light. "I don't think so; his is a particularly bad case. Does his family have any history of lung diseases?"

Irma pursed her lips and replied, "His grandfather on his mother's side, and his mother."

"Is the mother still alive?"

"No, both died from the consumption."

Grisha walked to the edge of the porch and looked out over the fields, brows furrowed in contemplation. He straightened and turned, facing Irma fully with a sympathetic expression.

"I'm afraid it doesn't look good for your husband."

"Is there any treatment?" Irma replied, a nearly hidden note of desperation entering her voice and expression.

"There is one, but I'm afraid it's prohibitively expensive to make."

Hope bloomed across her face, "I would be willing to pay - "

"Eight gold and seventy silver?" Grisha cut her off with a frown, "For half of a treatment?"

Irma's mouth and expression closed.

He continued, "That's what just the reagents would cost. For your family, I wouldn't even consider factoring in the mark up from the traders and my usual fee."

Irma's face fell and she drew her hands into her chest. "I-" She cut herself off as the hopelessness of the situation sunk in.

"I'm sorry, Irma."

Irma covered her face with her hands, her shoulders dropping in defeat.

Father was pale, sweating and shivering.

I brought his water glass closer to his hand, and he nearly drained it with long, slow gulps. With a hacking cough to clear his throat, he looked blearily up at me with a shaky smile. "Heh, guess I never really understood how old grampaps felt like with his inflammation."

I shook my head and fought back tears.

"Ah well, we'll make it through this, see?" He continued quietly, "After winter the weather can only get better."

I choked out a laugh, "Shouldn't I be cheering you up? Make sure you rest, and get better, hmm? Mom and I can take care of the farm without you for a little bit…" I trailed off.

Father just smiled and closed his eyes. "You'll both do fine without me for now, I'm sure. I love you, you know."

I nodded, throat stiff.

Father cleared his throat and rested his head on his pillow with a deep sigh. "I need to rest a little – go and help your mother with dinner, okay? We still need to feed the doctor."

I tried to grin, but it came out as a grimace. Shaking my head in acknowledgement I left the room, not trusting myself to speak. I swallowed back my tears and opened the door to the porch. Mother and Yeager were both sitting quietly on the bench silently.

Mother stood and walked towards me as I left the house, extending her arms in an invitation to hug. I gave her a quick, desperate squeeze and turned to face the doctor fully. "Is there any way you can help him?" I pleaded, hating how my voice came out as a whimper.

He slowly shook his head no.

My hope fell.

Something snapped.

I was angry. My face twisted into a snarl, "You can turn me into some hot-blooded freak, but you can't give him a simple antibiotic? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Yeager blinked in surprise at my complete one-eighty, "What do you mean?"

I bared my teeth in a sardonic, hopeless smile, "You don't know?" I asked, my voice dropping into a mocking snarl. How could he not? He designed the treatment he gave me, for Pete's sake-! "I thought you realized the medicine you gave me did this – !"

I had left my carving knife on the ground last night, too tired to pick up after myself. I snatched the whittling tool off of the floor and ripped my palm open. Mother hissed and rushed forward with her apron to try to stop the bleeding, but I held my hand away from her.

Doctor Yeager watched impassively as the wound poured steam and sealed itself within seconds. He met my eyes, all traces of sympathy gone and replaced by something entirely focused. "How long has this been happening?"

"Ever since you gave me whatever junk was in that syringe, you imbecile! Weren't you listening?" I growled, fists trembling in anger.

Doctor Yeager whirled on my mother, who recoiled from his sudden movement in shock. "I asked you to tell me if anything like this happened!"

Mother regained her composure and shook her head, "She never let herself get cut… This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this."

She looked at me and I scowled back up at her, "But, come to think of it, you never really bruised, either."

I roughly shook my head, "This isn't the point! We've seen what you can do with your syringes and chemicals!" I shouted, waving my newly-healed hand for emphasis, "Don't you have access to some kind of medicine that could help dad?"

"I think that your concerns are moot, girl." Yeager spat, turning back and looming over me. If my back wasn't straight before, I stiffened until it could be compared to a rod of iron.

I refused to back down to this man.

Yeager shook his head, "You have no idea how valuable the investment I've placed in you is to humanity. Now that I know that this formula works… The things I could do with this research! The potential that it opens! If I had known about this sooner, I could have helped the last person I visited!"

My stomach clenched. "I had no say in this! I was used like a test animal, without my permission, I might add – I remember that day just as clearly as you both do!" I shrieked.

Without warning, a hand flew across through air and slapped me across the face.

I flinched, and stared at my mother in shock. "You…" I couldn't talk. I closed my mouth.

"You selfish, selfish child," she quietly said. "I thought I knew you better than this, Lisa."

Something ugly twisted in my gut, freed by the hope that had been crushed, destroyed earlier.

"Perhaps, then," I spat, voice light and deliberate, with as much venom as I could muster, "I could sacrifice just as much, if not more than you seem to think I would,"

I didn't stop, even as mother started to speak. "You have no right – and"

"– if I would get –"

"You will stop this foolishness –"

"Some answers – !"

"Both of you be QUIET!" Doctor Yeager snapped over our bickering. We both stopped and turned to look at him.

"I," he began, "Will do everything in my power to make sure that your husband will survive this disease no matter what," he spoke to my mother. "In exchange," he held up a hand to forestall my protests as he turned back to me, "I ask to give the girl the secondary and third treatment in order to confirm their effectiveness."

"What? How could you even – ?" I began, but mother cut me off.

"Will they kill her, or permanently injure her?" She asked quietly.

He looked at mother levelly in the eyes, "Seeing that she took to the first serum I gave to her so well, in theory she will survive. The possibility of physical deformation would be, at worst, minimal to the point of becoming nonexistent despite the amount of time between treatments."

"If you were in her position, would you be willing to stake your own life on this treatment?" She asked tonelessly.

Without hesitation, he responded, "Yes."

Mother said nothing for a few moments, looking at me, then back to Yeager.

"…Then I accept."

The words were a sucker punch to my gut.

Then the doctor turned toward me and asked, "Are you willing to offer your body and mind for the sake and continued survival of humanity?"

I stared at him dully, my mind trying to parse what he just said.

"You wanted answers, but first I must ask you; are you willing?"

"…"

Why was he even giving me the illusion of a choice in the first place with father's health on the line? But I caught myself thinking of the answer to his question all the same.

My father, lying inside as pale as the sheets covering him, coughing in pain.

Dying.

And I realized, not quite for the first time, that despite whatever betrayal I may have experienced from my parents, that I loved them both. And that no matter what I thought of Yeager and his... experiments, there was only one 'right' answer.

Now I had to decide if I was more afraid for my own health than I was for my father's.

If Yeager could be trusted, then there was a possibility that I could survive this mess. As the situation stood, father would most definitely die; people never really recovered after the consumption was in them. It was a fact of life out here.

But with the services of a doctor as brilliant as Yeager… Would I be willing to risk my life for my father's?

I took a deep breath and turned towards Yeager fully.

"…Yes. Yes I am."

"Excellent."

Uh-oh.

Before you all decide to march on Irma for her decision, I feel the need to give you all some background history.

Edward Jenner in 1796 deliberately infected his patients with cowpox virus. After waiting for the infection to run its course, he exposed those same people to smallpox (something that would never be allowed to happen today in a first-world country without cutting through a veritable mountain of red tape) to test a theory. My point is that it was the norm back then to do human experimentation.

Anton and Irma were offered money in addition to a free treatment for their daughter that held a high possibility of permanently keeping her healthy. Since they live in a village without 'modern' medical access, of course they would jump at the chance. To them, they're giving their daughter a miracle treatment from a known medical genius. Grisha stopped a plague after all.

I don't support Irma and Anton's behavior. I'm simply trying to explain their perspective.

If you liked what I have written then I would really really appreciate if you would take the time to review.

Chapter 5  
Muee-hee-hee! Welcome back!

This chapter has been betaed by the impeccable White Ink Penpal.

The illness had progressed to the point that father was in immense pain whenever he was awake. Sometimes he coughed to badly that he would only be able to get back to sleep after passing out from exhaustion.

Mom couldn't be in the room when that happened. Pneumonia, if it was what I thought it was, spread through airborne droplets contaminated with the disease. I always made sure that she left the front door outside open so I could clean myself without touching the doorknobs.

Doctor Yeager had recommended that we isolate him, only allowing me to spend any length of time within his room. Then he prescribed water and rest, before requesting one more blood sample.

Discreetly, he handed mother a small glass bottle of white pills and told her to use them sparingly if father needed some pain relief, and promised to return within two weeks.

Mother had taken her bedding that evening and washed it so thoroughly I was surprised there were any fibers left. She always worked when upset – it was wise to stay out of the warpath and keep things clean whenever that happened.

On a smaller note, I was faced with the daunting prospect of losing my memories.

They had been fading for quite some time, to be honest. At least it was only the little things, like the placement of cheekbones and height. The colors of the vehicles we drove. The names of all the other fiction works I read.

Having completed all of my work for the day and having nothing else to do, I began writing down everything that I could remember. In English.

No one else spoke the language so they should be safe, even if I forgot everything.

One week later, and I still hadn't even come close to finished. After skimming through them I realized that I hadn't been prioritizing, instead writing whatever came to mind.

I dropped my improvised pen in its inkwell, lifted my shaking hands, and covered my face with a sigh.

I was beyond scared about this.

And I couldn't bring up my fears to anyone without letting them know my situation. Mother and Father were out – the situation was stressful for all of us and I would only look crazy if I up and claimed to be reincarnated. The only possible person I could talk to was Fran, but mom had already proven that she didn't have the necessary brain-to-mouth filter to keep any kind of secret for any length of time.

I inhaled, picked up my inked pen, and continued to write.

The important stuff would be archived first – the overall plot, the major antagonists, dates, names, their stories if they had any. Digging out my first notes from when I was first 'learning to draw,' I refreshed my memory as well as I could then sat myself down on my bed, pen in hand.

I wrote of my family and grieved as I felt the loss of them all over again.

I wrote of home. Of the nation I lived in, and of the way of life we once had. Of how there were rights and freedoms that we didn't have here in this caged monarchy.

I wrote of my education, and the of the plot - the future - I needed to remember. That was important enough to write in Commons, even though it held the risk of being found out.

Then I gathered up my archived memories and found a small wooden box.

Our property extended to enclose part of a small forest and a couple of hills. There were at least nineteen places outside where I could hide a container of this size and not have to worry about it being found out.

Instead, I did the sensible thing and hid it under my bed.

It may sound stupid, but there were two reasons why I did this. My bed was a kind of futon; a straw mattress covered with a cotton sheet to prevent it from making a mess everywhere. I had sliced into the bed sheet, and carved and carried out a section of the bedding piece by piece to make a hidden slot for the box.

Secondly, I had never heard of a child going so far to hide something in this manner. It would have made the rounds, after all; destruction of property before it was unusable, even if it was your own, was a gossip-worthy offense in this poor town.

So I resigned myself to picking up straw pieces from everywhere until I could sew up the cover.

Days flew, the harvest began, and mother hired out a group of contractors to go through our fields in father's place. Wheat, sorghum, squash, and potatoes. Carrots, grapes, sweet potatoes, and yams. Apricots ripened and showered the yard, so I climbed the trees with a basket to save the best ones.

We were fortunate; it was a very good year for us.

The traders came, and prices were haggled for the vegetables and fruit we'd gathered. In the meantime we stowed our excess. We boiled water and dug the old glass jars out of storage, cleaned them, and prepared the vegetables. We salted and canned them, going back to the village and selling them to the traders.

The kitchen was filled with thick steam for a week and a half.

On the last day of canning, we heard a knock at the door. Thinking that it was Fran, I hurried to open it.

Doctor Yeager stood outside.

Anxiety curled my gut, but I let him in.

The afternoon sun was hitting my face. Sleepily, I blinked and shifted, exhaustion weighing down my limbs. Heavy humidity hung in the air, and a mild headache pulsed from behind my eyes.

We were supposed to finish canning today...

I shook my head and hauled myself out of bed, stumbling slightly from exhaustion. While waiting for my equilibrium to stabilize, I heard the low murmur of conversation echo from the living room. Nervously, I carefully opened the door to my room and walked out.

Doctor Yeager sat at the table.

Stopping in the doorway, words spilled from my mouth before I could stop myself, "When did you get here?"

He stopped talking to mother and turned as he heard me come in. His eyebrows furrowed together in concern as he stood to face me. "You don't remember?"

I shook my head. "No… I must have been asleep…"

His lips pressed into a thin line before brusquely opening his briefcase. "I see. What's the last thing that happened?"

"Well, we were planning on finishing the canning tomorrow, then I fell asleep," I dully stated as I walked over to the table and sat down. I looked around, wondering where the smell of pumpkin was coming from.

Rows of packed jars were neatly lined the shelves to cool.

Wait a second...

"We already did the canning?" I asked as my stomach sank.

We set aside pumpkin for today. I remembered talking to mother about what we had planned with the rest of our crop we didn't sell.

I felt a somewhat irrational flash of hatred at Yeager, but quashed it as much as I could; now was not the time. I had to figure out what happened first before I decided what to do.

"Yes, you were finishing when I arrived," Yeager confirmed, pulling out a small pad and jotting down notes.

I frowned at my clasped hands. "You gave me the treatments," I accused, looking up at him.

"Only the second of the three, I'm afraid. I need to wait for a few weeks to see if it'll take," he answered, still writing onto the journal.

"…Will I lose any more memories?" I asked quietly.

"I don't know," he replied, setting down his notepad and looking at me. "You're one of the first of several who's gotten this far."

How many others? I wanted to ask, but kept silent. My head throbbed, and I shielded my eyes from the sunlight streaming through the window.

"How long was I out?" I asked, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

"For a good three hours or so, at least," Yeager responded as he pulled out a set of prepared papers from his briefcase. Tapping them against the table, he dipped his pen in an inkwell and cleared his throat. I looked up at his solemn expression. "Now I need to ask you a few questions…"

I nodded numbly and settled back onto my chair, feeling lost.

What followed was a surprisingly thorough mental evaluation. I answered as best as I could, within reason.

He stayed for a few days, treating father and discussing business and life amicably with mother. I made myself as scarce as possible during the day, either holing myself up in my room if they were outside, or disappearing into the fruit orchard if they were inside.

They were inside more often than not.

I sighed and plucked another apricot from the tree and squished the meat between my teeth. Sweetness blossomed in my mouth, and I sighed. It was getting late; I'd better go and milk the cows.

The beauty of being on a farm was that there were always excuses; things to do, places to be.

After a half hour or so I finished the milking and had hauled the raw liquid in buckets to the house. As I walked closer to the porch, I noticed that Doctor Yeager was outside and looking at the herb garden. Most of the plants were seeded, dead, or dying, but he picked up a sprig of anise that had held on through the dropping temperatures.

I walked into the house and let the door slam behind me. Mother looked up disapprovingly, and I muttered an apology before bringing the milk to the stove to be pasteurized.

As I busied myself I gave an internal snort. The process was still called pasteurization – I had run into a lot of strange words while growing up, but finding that something was still called by a name familiar to me was a shock. Commons shared characteristics of multiple European languages while retaining a strangely Germanic flavor. In spite of its similarity to the Anglo-Saxon language, I couldn't find many rules that reminded me of English sentence structure. Any English words were similarly nonexistent.

I poured the milk into a pot and stoked the fire in the stove top. Pulling the sand timer from the cupboard, I left it out on the table and pulled out one of my books to read.

Time passed, the milk warmed and began steaming. I adjusted the heat, leaving the milk at around the same temperature.

An hour later the sand ran out, and I hurried to bottle the milk as quickly as I could. With that done, I left the house and meandered in the direction of the barn while the milk cooled.

We have a store of ice out in the cellar of the barn from the previous winter. The process to keep the heat out of the room was rather interesting - basically, we packed large blocks of ice from the river into a small room and covered them with sawdust to preserve as much coolness as possible. Many of the blocks were either used or melted by this time of year, but there was still enough to gather to keep the milk cool in the fall. I dug out a piece and trotted back into the house.

After setting up the cooling box, I walked back into my room and dug out my journal.

Looking back on my conversation with mother after learning of my memory loss, I found that I only forgot the memories before a certain time frame – approximately eight hours or so.

I was still spooked.

And who wouldn't be? That was my memory, gone. Poof. Just like that.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember what we did that day. In response I set aside some pages in my journal to act as a day-to-day diary and started a habit of checking it every morning, just in case the next treatment wiped out more than what I had lost last time.

Yes, I was lucky that it wasn't worse, but I felt violated. My memory was forcibly taken from me; my body injected with a foreign substance that had unknown effects. I couldn't even remember the doctor's face as he administered the shot to see what he felt.

Did he know that something like this would happen? Did he enjoy what he was doing? Was he truly sincere about his work? Did he care about my family?

I couldn't say.

Mother told me that the only thing I did after I received the treatment was to go to my room to sleep.

After digging around in my clothes drawer I found a piece of paper that sketchily detailed the day's events, hidden underneath my socks.

Despite the relief of having something to gauge the previous day with, I couldn't trust my memory anymore.

I hated the possibility that at the end of the treatment, Doctor Yeager could be standing in my house telling me that the experiment was a failure while I sat dumbly, drooling from permanent brain damage.

But that... was neither here nor there. It wouldn't do for him to lose his test subject, after all. I was fairly sure that the research he invested in the titan shifting serum wasn't cheap.

In the meantime, Yeager had continued to honor his deal and was treating father's illness with a milky grey liquid that reminded me, vaguely, of the antibiotics that the doctors used in my old life.

Whatever it was, it worked. I could see the results within three days – his color had returned, and he wasn't coughing nearly as badly during the night. By the fifth day, he had enough energy to get up and walk around.

Mother was so happy that I couldn't help but smile along with her as father left the bed, on his own, to rearrange his bed sheets without assistance.

Life was much better now than it was three weeks ago. Father was well, and frankly, I felt as if I had come out of the treatment with little more than a light slap on the wrist.

So why did I feel so apprehensive of that considering look Yeager gave to me after I described my symptoms?

Unsettled, I waited for Doctor Yeager to leave before excusing myself and going to my bedroom. After closing the door, I made a beeline to my bed and dug out my box of notes. I skimmed over the first few and sighed in relief when I found that I could still remember writing those pages. Setting those aside, I dug deeper and gradually relaxed as I read the first few lines of my notes in English.

Those memories hadn't been stolen.

With a breathless laugh, I choked back relieved giggles and hurriedly put my notes and box away.

I lay on my bed and relaxed for a few moments, glad that one of my major fears had been proven unfounded. For now. A few minutes passed before I sat up and pored through the rest of my notes. Everything seemed good – I could remember what I had been thinking of when I wrote the notes down, and nothing was out of place.

A feeling of liberation was causing my hands to shake, so I carefully gathered all of my paper together and tucked it safely away into my box.

I went about my business before I went to bed with the world's most stupid grin on my face.

I could still read English.

I still had my memories.

You know that feeling you get when you realize that you dodged a major bullet? Yeah. It's one heck of a rush.

But life went on. While I was wallowing in my worry, school had begun more than a month ago. Though I stayed home mostly to assist with the harvest and father's care, once he was well enough to function passably on his own I was sent out of the house.

It was a cool autumn morning, with the haze of fog refracting the early morning sun into a wall of pure white that blocked visibility past thirty meters.

The orphanage was only a slight detour away from the main road, so I walked through the familiar streets to Fran's home. The front of the large house poked through the misty fog that hung in the cool morning air. I stretched my arms, comfortable in the chill temperatures and light breeze.

I drew closer to the front doors, hesitating just before I stepped onto the porch as I heard a plate shatter over the sounds of an argument. That didn't sound good… I walked up to the front door and knocked loudly, hoping that my friend would hear me.

"Fran? Fraaaaan? Come on, we're gonna be late for school!"

The shouting on the other end of the door ebbed for a moment before increasing in volume. I strained my ears, hearing the rough, stressed voice of the head matron yelling at someone else. It was high-pitched, angry…

Wait.

Fran?

I jerked the knob back and the heavy door pressed against the weak latch. With some jimmying, the cheap catch skipped the frame completely. I hurried into the dark main hall through the aged and dusty wooden walls.

The hall was surprisingly long for the building, branching off into two staircases and winding their way onto the second floor down on my left. Dim candles lit the walls, providing barely enough illumination in the early pre-dawn light to see the numerous doors. I stopped near the dark double-doors of the dining hall and pushed open the creaky doors with a grimace.

I looked inside, observing the chaos cautiously. The crush of young bodies eating at the tables were in various states of agitation due to the confrontation at the middle of the hall. Some ignored the proceedings, while some that were closer to the epicenter were looking around for possible escape routes.

And there, in the middle of it all, stood Fran.

She was facing down the head matron of the orphanage, expression filled with exhaustion, defiance, and frustration. The enraged and harried face of the heavyset woman glared back at her in equal measures of exasperation, arms akimbo.

Fran shifted as she subconsciously reacted to the presence of a new person in the room. However, she was so focused on her argument she didn't notice me standing there. "And I'm telling you, I was tripped!"

"When ya can prove tha', won'nerful." The matron growled at her, using her impressive height to her advantage by looming over the slight frame of Fran, "But n'less ya start payin' fer the damage tha' 'kips 'appenin'' 'round ya, I can'na keep ya here!"

"How? By selling myself to the perverts over in the west end?" She sarcastically replied, and received a rough cuff for her efforts. Fran yelped, but the matron's face, etched deeply with lines of anger at her defiance, pointed to the doorway I was in.

"Gerrouta here 'til yah've learned ta keep yer words in check."

"Fine!" She snapped, grabbing her meager school supplies, "Since I'm too much trouble!"

The matron stared dispassionately at Fran as she ran from the hall in tears.

Fran pushed against me roughly, forcing me to stagger against the door frame.

"Just leave me alone!" Fran shrieked to the room as she bolted into the fog.

I almost turned to run after her, but I heard the scrape of one of the heavy benches being pushed around behind me. I turned to look, and saw a group of young boys standing around a table near where the argument between Fran and the matron had happened.

Granted, the majority of the forty-some children in the room had paid attention to the fight, but this group… I recognized several of them from school. Geoffrey and Bleiki. Those two exchanged secret, vicious smirks. Novik, Peeters, and Yanev were even fighting giggles.

I turned and ran after Fran.

The cobbled roads of the village were beginning to bustle with the early-morning activity of the craftsmen and women. A few children were walking about, holding their writing slates and thin books.

I found her on the way to the school huddled in a cold nook behind a carpenter's house that we were fond of using for hide-and-go-seek. Her shoulders shook silently.

"Fran?" I asked, slowly walking into the alley.

"Go away." She growled, curled into the corner of the wood pile.

I frowned and stopped next to her, "I don't think so."

"I don't want you here!" She shouted, voice cracking.

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. "Too bad. You have to deal with me now. What happened?"

She whimpered, curling up into herself even tighter. Her face was hidden by her knees and her loose blonde hair. Absentmindedly, I grabbed a small hair tie from my pocket as I crouched beside her.

"Here," I offered. Fran took the piece of string and tied her blonde hair back into its customary ponytail.

"S'not like you can understand…" She sniffled, running her bare arm across her face. I winced, wishing that I had a handkerchief or even an old rag.

"Try me," I challenged, "What's going on?"

She was quiet for a few seconds, shivering against the chill air. "They're always there!" She finally exploded, "And I can't do anything about it!"

I shook my head. I thought as much. "What happened, Fran?"

And just as if a dam broke, Fran began to cry again in earnest. I stayed crouched awkwardly as a jumble of words came pouring out of her like so much water.

"They – they told me I wa-was stupid! Then they took m-my slate and kept it away from me a-a-and dumped it in the street! Then they told me I–I was ugly and that I would never get into the Survey Corps! Then they said I was s-s so stupid an' ugly, th-the military wouldn't take me!"

I sighed and moved closer to her, pulling her into a hug. I patted her back while she wailed into my shoulder. I shook my head. The scenario she described would be devastating for pretty much any eight-year-old.

"How long have they been doing this?" I asked, careful to keep my voice gentle.

"I-I dunno," she sniffled, rubbing her dripping nose, "They started in the middle of summer an' they k-keep doing this an' they're not stopping!" She wailed, sobbing even harder.

I let her cry for a few minutes, humming quietly as she tried to compose herself. Soon her sniffles became hiccups, and I shifted slightly.

"Hey, we need to get to school or we're gonna be late. You alright?"

"Yeah…" She sniffed, rubbing at her eyes with grubby fingers.

We stood and walked towards our destination in silence, listening to the distant rattle of carts and scuffs of people.

Head tucked into her chest, Fran fiddled with the threads coming off of her sleeves.

"Sorry, Lisa."

"For what?" I asked, looking over my shoulder at her, "Being upset that someone's harassing you?"

Fran shook her head and replied with a quiet voice, "No, for being so worthless…"

I stopped completely, turning around and facing Fran squarely. She squeaked and looked at the ground, red faced.

I sized her up quickly as she cringed away.

This… could be an issue if she kept this up. Fran was one of those people that existed to be happy; seeing her like this was depressing on so many levels that it was pathetic. Not to mention, having low self-confidence could lead to her becoming an underachiever. And that probably would kill her in the long run if she joined the Corps.

"If I thought you were worthless, I wouldn't have talked to you in the first place."

She looked up at me in surprise.

I shrugged one shoulder, grabbing her wrist (eliciting a surprised yell from Fran) and hauling her towards the schoolhouse.

"Come on, we're late enough as is."

I entered the classroom for the first time in five weeks. After taking a quick stock of the behavior of my classmates, it was painfully obvious that Fran's trouble had been going on for some time.

The boys I had seen earlier would snicker quietly, whisper to her at her desk whenever we were separated, and make obnoxious faces before mockingly blowing kisses at her. They never did these offenses frequently enough for the teacher to notice.

The brunet and blond heads of Novik and Bleiki jeered at me. I glared at them in irritation. Novik whispered something to his friend, who laughed.

Alright, enough of this.

Carefully closing the book in my hand, I fully turned toward them and stared at them.

And kept on staring.

They soon lost interest and moved onto easier targets. I pulled out my book and continued reading, a frown on my face.

This… could be an issue.

There was always a chance that the situation could get more physical between the (much larger, I unhappily noted) boys and Fran if left unaddressed.

As capable as she was, Fran was more suited for speed than enduring fights.

What I found most interesting was that the boys in question were smart enough to not draw attention. Well, that just meant that going through any authority figure was out.

For now.

Until then, I would have to get a better bead on the situation.

And after that, plans would be made.

It took less than two days for me to seriously rethink my initial assessment.

I'd had enough of this juvenile shit. I lived through this once in my pre-university years; though these little kids' attempts were more irritating than anything else, I really didn't need the reminders of what I had endured as a kid before I died.

It was much worse than I thought.

They were only targeting the girls around my age. Though they lacked the inherent malice of the older teenagers from my fist life, they were tenacious little bastards.

A 'misplaced' pen or inkwell here, an 'accident' to shatter a stylus there, a bump that wasn't quite a shove.

If kept up for any extended length of time, tactics like this could easily bring someone unaccustomed to psychological torment close to their limit. If I didn't know these children were just that; children, I wouldn't have hesitated to bring about a conclusion that would have been so much more than simply humiliating.

As it went, I settled for gathering some herbs from around the property – hawthorn, especially.

Diuretics were wonderful things, especially if discretely placed in the snacks the boys commonly brought to curb their appetite until dinner.

But I couldn't overuse the herbs. Funny as it was to force them to cause disruptions in class and draw attention to themselves, dehydration could become a major problem and I didn't want to cause any major permanent health problems. I stopped my treatment after the second dose, and while the medicine ran its course Fran, me, and several other classmates were finally, finally, left alone for two days.

But it was too good to last.

Apparently either Geoffrey was smarter than he looked or I wasn't careful enough, because as soon as he could walk without wetting his pants again he targeted me.

Well, at least it got the heat off of the other kids. Mostly.

I ran interference for Fran whenever I could, and kept near the adults I knew I could trust to act if they saw something. But eventually all five of the boys decided to band together and bring the bullying to another level.

It was then I realized that my little eight-year-old reputation wasn't going to intimidate them.

I was walking home, taking one of my usual shortcuts, when I spotted the short, shaggy hair on Geoffrey's head in the middle of the crowd.

Annoyed, I kept walking, then turned left. Down three alleyways, duck into the fourth, climb the short fence here… I turned around the corner into a moderately sized yard sprinkled with tall piles of junk. Old carts, scrap wood and burn wood, ancient stoves and trash laid scattered across the courtyard, grass and old growth tangling through the piles.

As I walked forward, something flew at my face. I flinched backward, hearing a pile of wood behind me clack as something hard struck it. Movement from behind the largest pile of rocks and old wine barrels stopped me from turning to look at what had been thrown at me.

I saw the distinctive horsey face of Yanev, followed by the blond Bleiki and Peeters. I felt the first stirrings of fear in my gut as I heard two other footsteps scrape from behind me. A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed what I thought; Geoffrey and Novik had finished surrounding me.

"You know, my parents are expecting me to return to the house by five," I mildly warned, carefully positioning my back towards the nearest junk pile and slowly backing towards it.

"Aww, does the widdle baby have a bedtime?" Peeters jeered, his too-wide mouth splitting into his round face.

I shook my head nonchalantly, looking for an easy escape route. "Nah, not really. Just sayin' you guys should probably keep this conversation short."

The group was uncoordinated, I noticed; one boy would scrape closer, then another would shift from foot to foot while the others either faked rushes or drew closer slowly. It was interesting in a detached, clinical way.

"So, Geoffrey says he saw ya messin' with our food a few days ago. That true?" Bleiki asked.

Ah. So I was spotted. Damn.

"Nah, why would I wanna do that?" I drawled, foot bumping into something hard and square. I didn't look down, but I stopped. "So, what's the plan?" I asked, inwardly cursing when the last opportunity for escape closed just as I noticed it, "You cowards gonna hit a girl?"

"Naw, but now that you mention it…" Bleiki grinned, "I think it's high time we got some fun outta this."

Peeters stepped in, "We really didn't like what you did to us, girl. Why shouldn't we return the favor?"

"That was assuming you five weren't in the wrong in the first place." I mildly retorted, bending my knees and lowering my center of gravity.

"Don't get all high and mighty on me, Mar-tin."

"Ppht." I scoffed, "Real smooth there, kid. Using my last name like that'd intimidate me. What's the point of this, Geoff? You gonna hit me or not?"

My provocation was enough. They charged. I ducked and sidestepped as two of the boys tripped on the uneven ground and rammed into each other. Geoffrey tried to punch where I had been a moment before and overextended.

I jumped forward over the fallen bodies of Novik and Yanev and grabbed Geoffrey's fist. One twist later, and he was sent hurtling into a nearby pile of burn wood. Bleiki hit me from behind while I was distracted and I staggered, pain radiating up on my back from my kidney. I lashed out quickly with a leg, lucky enough to hit him on his shin.

My back stiff, I gingerly stepped away as Yanev and Novik stood up from the ground. Carefully edging away from the pile of wood behind me, I tried to maneuver myself into a straight shot between myself and the low fence.

Someone scraped a shoe across the dirt behind me, and I barely turned in time to see Peeters swinging a fist at my face. I ducked, but wasn't fast enough and got clipped on the crown of my head. Bleiki had gotten up sometime ago and was suddenly there; I was punched across my face and chest while I was on one leg and off balance.

I hit the ground hard, half-knocking the air from my lungs as I landed on my back and arm. Coughing, I struggled to stand as quickly as I could without choking. Pain radiated up my back, arm, sides, and face. I could feel my skin heating up as my body tried to repair the damage.

This wasn't working. I felt more than heard Geoffrey and Bleiki taunt me as they drew nearer, and quickly looked around for a two-by-four or something I could use as a weapon. Yanev interrupted my frantic searching as he stepped within arm's reach of me.

It was close enough. Ignoring the pain, I twisted my body around and swept his legs out from under him.

He fell with a yelp, but not before striking me painfully across the shin of my overextended leg with a flailing arm.

I grunted at the new injury but kept enough presence of mind to snatch a piece of wood. I scrambled upright, heavily favoring my right leg. Peeters came at me from behind, but I roared and slammed his torso with the improvised wooden club.

Peeters dropped with a wheeze, and I turned and kicked Bleiki between the legs with my injured leg; shrieking in pain as white lights danced across my vision.

Damn that hurt.

Bleiki fell with a hoarse scream, curling into a fetal position.

With most of their muscle knocked out Novik and Geoffrey bolted. Peeters, Bleiki, and Yanev were left behind on the ground in varying states of injury. I rubbed my face where I could feel swelling from the punch Bleiki had gotten off.

I groaned in pain and left the now-quiet area, slowly limping my way home.

End

Did you know...?

The flowers and berries of hawthorn plants can be used to make a natural diuretic tea. The resulting concoction is invariably bitter, but would stimulate the fluid production in the kidneys. It can be used to treat kidney stones, but I have been assured by a friend of mine that beer is much more effective as alcohol can help with the pain (but be sure to drink responsibly and follow your local alcohol laws).

This was one FUN chapter to write. I really enjoy fight scenes, especially the crazy ones while in a first-person perspective.

I just wanted to give a HUGE thank-you to everyone who favorited and/or reviewed this fic. You stroke my abused ego and help me to write! Especially with your speculation - that really helps me consider new avenues I hadn't even imagined before!

Chapter 6  
Hiyas! I got a betta. Bettas are really fun to watch. Have any of you ever had a betta before?

Another thing: I just discovered the NeiR OST. I'm crying right now. The music is so saaaaaad... *bawls*

On with the story!

Funny thing about my regeneration – I healed as I went. If someone was fighting me, I had to be put down hard and fast or I'd just get up again. The drawback? I always got the mother of all migraines and a barely-controllable bloody nose if I pushed or damaged myself too severely.

As for the bullies...

I had expected retaliation of some kind - anticipated it, really - but I didn't expect them to resort to going through an authority figure. I guess their bruises were too obvious to hide, or they just didn't care about the hit to their reputation at this point.

The matron arrived at our doorstep the day after my fight. Mother let her in, exchanged a few words with her, and asked me to go into my room.

Long story short, in the span of twenty minutes I was tried for assault, grounded to stand in the closet for an hour, and sentenced to community service for 'fighting my peers.' I plead my case as self-defense, but I didn't have proof. The matron claimed I was the aggressor - by this time I had already healed up - and as the evidence stood, it looked like I had jumped them.

Let me just say that the switch was a common punishment for where I lived and leave it at that.

A pile of roadapples steamed on the cobblestones of the main street. It was high noon - miserable, humid, high noon. The sun beat mercilessly down on my head and shoulders as I stopped to wipe the sweat out of my eyes with a forearm. Mr Dolahov, the bulky man who passed as our local law enforcement, stood in the shade of the storefront. He leaned against the post, a newspaper in hand. He glanced at me when I stopped working but turned back to his reading material with a snort. Derision fairly rolled off of him in waves.

Unseen behind his back I rolled my eyes and turned away from the false front of the general store. I shoveled more crap into the wheelbarrow with a wrinkled nose. There was a dump - an immense pile of trash in a pit at the outskirts of the village, around three or so blocks from where I was at. I filled the wheelbarrow and made my way down the street.

Gossip spread fast in our little town. At least most people weren't overly rude about it. It was still annoying to walk around and notice someone referring to me as 'that troublesome girl' while the other person sighed and tutted. Rolling my shoulders, I dumped the load into the pit, waving away flies that had tried to settle on my face with a grimace.

Disgusting. I hated those wriggling insects with a burning passion. Winter was my favorite season – no bugs, no heat, snowstorms stopping the school year…

Ah well. I still had to survive the fall. I moved the wheelbarrow to the next pile of dung and went back to shoveling.

An hour passed, then two. Many more trips were made between the dung heap and the main street. A sleepy snort came from my left as Mr. Dolahov shook himself out of his doze. I turned to look at him, resting heavily against my shovel. Without looking at me he leisurely stretched, scratched his stubble, and checked his watch. I intentionally scraped my shovel a few times against the ground, and he looked up at me in surprise.

"You're still here?"

I quirked an eyebrow in response, sliding the tip of the shovel into a crack and rolled my fingers against the long handle.

Mr. Dolahov cracked his neck once, then shrugged and waved me off. "Get going home – you were supposed to work until twelve anyhow."

I replied flatly, "It's two in the afternoon."

Dolahov shrugged, uncaring, "So what? I'll see you on Friday after school's out."

I frowned, shifting slightly, "You're not going to tally these hours to my punishment?"

"Trust me so little, eh? I will. Now get," He shooed me away as he picked up the newspaper from where he had dropped it.

I scurried.

School the following Monday went about as well as it could have. I walked into the small building, blinking as my eyes adjusted from the bright early morning light to the dimness of the inside.

Fran, as per usual, had walked with me to school that day. We made our way to our usual seats and scooted around the desks occupied by Geoffery and his friends. Bleiki looked up to see who had jostled his bench, smirked at Fran, but then saw me and paled. Geoffery, Yanev, and Peeters stopped their conversation to see what happened, but then caught sight of me too.

I had already healed up and was fresher than a daisy. The shocked expression on Geoffery's face was almost, almost, worth everything I had gone through.

When we filed out of the classroom for our first 'recess' I noticed that two of the boys were hiding limps, Geoffrey was covering deep scratches across his back with a long sleeved shirt, and Bleiki spoke with a slightly higher voice than usual.

The day passed without incident or conflict, or once. Fran giggled, and I looked to see her pointing at something out the window while talking to another classmate. Smiling, I looked down at my slate and began writing the sentences dictated in the reader.

Aside from my punishment, at least everything was back to normal. Mr. Kreef stood up to walk to the front of the class, and I closed the schoolbook.

Father was still stable, so I convinced mother to let me burn some of the contaminated blankets and clothes that were beyond saving or washing at this point.

Bleach was a rare thing to have out here; otherwise I would have saved the blankets. We only had a liter inside of a thick glass bottle that mom had bought several years ago. I used nearly half of it trying to disinfect all of the surfaces in the bedroom and other areas in the house that we couldn't easily replace.

As I cleaned, I couldn't shake the feeling that the remission was only temporary. The medicine here... though I was shocked at its initial effectiveness I knew that the medical technology wasn't nearly advanced enough yet to guarantee father was cured.

I voiced my concerns to mother, but she only tightened her lips and shook her head.

"Doctor Yeager mentioned he needed to bring more of his medicine for Anton. Perhaps you're right, but we need to have some hope. He's still walking around."

I nodded and went back to cleaning.

The weather stayed fair, and in spite of the cooling temperatures our animals remained healthy. I began whittling once again, beginning work on an 'exotic' animal – a large bobcat. The walls were located somewhere in central Europe, so 'common' fauna from the Americas were all but nonexistent outside of the history books.

With the rough shape for the body carved out, I settled myself down for scraping out the details on the ears and face. It was slow work. Though muscle memory had improved my dexterity, my knife was just slightly too large to easily make the details I wanted.

The front door opened, and looked up in surprise as father tiredly came out of the house.

He was still pale, I noted absently as I placed my tools on the floor, jumped up, and gave him a hug. He smiled gently and gave me a squeeze back, making his way towards the bench and sitting down. I cleared off all of the wood shavings from the other end of the bench and perched on the edge of the seat, drawing my knees up to my chest.

Neither of us spoke for some time, watching the sun set in the cloudy sky as the chiffchaff and late orioles chattered in the trees.

I turned, quietly gathered my half-finished figurine and tools from the floor, and was about to leave. Dad cleared his throat, so I stopped and looked up at him in curiosity.

"What're you making?" He asked, holding out his hand for the small animal I had made.

"A bobcat… There was a picture in the books," I explained at his blank look, handing him my work.

He hummed and nodded, turning the piece of wood over in his hands. "I talked to Rimes a while ago."

"The trader?" I asked. There were several Rimes living in the village, but trader Rimes was one of our go-to people if we wanted to sell anything wooden.

Father nodded, "He said you've been selling him some carvings. He had some high praise for you."

"Oh." Was my ever-so eloquent reply. I honestly thought he only purchased my animals because he was humoring me.

"He mentioned that there were several shops in Hermiha that bought several of your pieces."

I blinked, surprised. There were several carpentry and sculpting shops in Hermiha; hearing that someone bought figurines from a trader was something that didn't happen all that often.

"He has a good eye for opportunity," I replied neutrally.

Father chuckled. "Indeed he does. He said they liked your 'military emblems' set. Why the sudden interest?"

I fell silent and leaned back against the bench. "It was a while ago, and I don't make those plaques too often. He never mentioned that his customers liked them."

"Heh. He was bragging to me that some rich woman bought your Military Police emblem off of him for twenty-three silver."

My jaw dropped. "That would have been enough money to feed all the kids at school for a couple of weeks!"

Father chuckled, ruffling my hair. Ignoring my squawks of protest, he shook his head, "They live differently in the inner cities, hon. I used to make a half-ingot a year as a trader."

Smoothing my hair, I eyed him skeptically.

He shrugged, "It's true. If it wasn't for the losses to thieves and upkeep costs, we would have lived like kings. It's a lot of traveling, and horses don't feed and shoe themselves."

I hummed in acknowledgement. Dad handed me my figurine and stood up with a tired sigh.

"I'm so tired these days..." He trailed off, and shook his head. Turning towards me he said, "You're growing so fast. You make me proud. Keep helping your mother, hmm?"

Smiling, I nodded, and he went back into the house. I turned back to my project as the sound of his bedroom door closing rang through the house.

Father's cough was worse the next day.

I sighed as I scribbled a few sentences onto a loose sheet of paper that served as a stand-in for my journal. Yeager had promised to return within the week. If he wasn't waylaid by anything on the way here, he'd probably come the day after tomorrow.

A hacking noise came from father's bedroom. It was a wet sound; never good.

Mother was worried with good reason - at this point, father wasn't improving at all. I finished writing and hid the paper with the rest before I hopped out of bed and started to work my way around the house.

Mother was outside checking on our fields, so I set about straitening up the kitchens and living rooms.

Fran once mentioned that she wanted to come over to my house and help out. I told her she couldn't come inside, but there was a fence that needed to be fixed.

I could hear Fran's complaints echoing against the barn wall after a particularly loud piece of wood clattered against the ground. Reaching for another loose towel to gather into the laundry pile, I hurriedly folded it and moved onto the next.

A few minutes later I had finished up my chores, then went outside and slid onto the bench once again. Picking up the bobcat, I turned it around contemplatively.

I really needed a smaller tool to work with.

Setting the figurine down carefully, I stood and went inside. Opening up the carving wood chest father always kept stocked, I dug around for something my young hands could fit around easily. There was a small branch near the far right corner, buried under several longer square pieces. Shoving them out of the way, I pulled the long piece from its resting place.

It rested in the palm of my hand easily. I trotted outside and shattered the piece on the ground, not really caring about stress fractures for now. If my experiment worked, I would look around for better tools when the spring traders came. Maybe I'd even get one for my ninth birthday…

I stopped, just realizing how quickly time flew.

I was turning nine next year.

It was sobering in a distant, almost unrealized way – the titans were going to return, and we were still living here. Though I was faced with my own mortality, I couldn't help but barely care, having long since resigned to the inevitability.

All I could hope for now was that the weather stayed fair and normal. A drought would prevent us from leaving our farm, and if we didn't leave before the titans came...

A breeze was blowing steadily over the land, and a stray gust curled around my black hair. I shivered and gathered up my wood tools.

The branch was quickly whittled down to a more convenient size and I went back inside. Rooting around in one of the drawers, I found some old nails that had been left over from when father built the counter top. It was an immense nail; almost as long as my hand. I probably could drive it straight through the small improvised handle I had and not have to worry about length afterward. I went outside and carefully set to drilling a small hole through the center.

With that done, I carefully braced the handle against the floor and hammered the nail in.

I now held a passable picking tool for the little notches I couldn't reach with my worn knife. Settling down on the bench, I began carving out the eyes and the fur.

The sun set completely, and I grabbed an oil lamp from inside.

I wasn't sure how long I worked on the carving, but I stopped as the oil in the lamp began to sputter some hours later. Flinching away from the sparks, I looked up and saw the moon was hanging heavily on the western horizon. I blinked in surprise, and glanced at the bobcat.

It stared back up at me almost curiously.

I let my self smile, and tiredly fumbled around the floor as I cleaned up my mess. Walking into the house, I noticed that mother had fallen asleep next to the dying embers of the fireplace, her unfinished needlepoint lying on her lap. I carefully moved her project and brought out a blanket. Covering her with it, I waited a few moments for her to move. She didn't wake up.

A few minutes later, I collapsed on the bed and was out like a light.

We stood outside of the barn beside a sight most unusual among animalkind.

Fran stared.

I stared.

Mother, who had just walked up to see what we were doing, stared.

Fran broke the silence. "Wow."

"I really don't know what to say," I agreed. "I've never seen a goat do that before."

Said goat bleated indignantly upon the driver's seat of the cart like he had been born there. Then it twisted its neck so that it was looking at everything upside-down.

The cart the goat was sitting on was parked beside a tree. I picked up a long twig on the ground and gently poked the goat's flank. It made a noise of complaint and hop-skipped sideways, tumbling off of its perch with an incensed croak.

Then it picked itself up and continued to look around itself with its head upside-down.

"I'm getting a crick in my neck just looking at it…" I sighed.

"I'm wondering how it got out from the pen," mother frowned.

The goat blinked lazily and wandered off, head still hanging.

"It might be sick... I'll put it in the back pen. Are you two coming?" Mother asked as she reached grabbed the unfortunate goat by its harness. I shrugged and turned to follow, but Fran ran after some chickens that had the bad luck to wander near the fence.

The small flock heard a living missile coming for them and turned as one.

They paused in a general consensus of 'oh crap' a millisecond before they all scattered. Three or four squawked loudly when she reached down to grab a chicken that had wandered too close.

"Get back here!" She yelled at the birds, diving for a nearby white one with a reddish comb. The chicken clucked and cackled, half-stepping and hop-skipping away from the little blonde terror. Fran suddenly reached and caught it by its tail feathers.

"BRAOOOOOOOOOOOOOUHWWWWK!"

I sighed as Fran brought the chicken back towards me, grinning widely.

"You could've just left it…"

"I know." She giggled petting the indignant bird's head, "I wanted to catch a chicken."

I gave the bird a small stroke on its head. It clucked, and I turned away and trotted over to the barn where mother had gone.

"Who's a crazy chicken? Yuss youuu are~!" I heard Fran coo as I went inside.

I rolled my eyes and walked up to mother. She was pulling down the saddle blankets for our horses, and I hurried to grab one that was slipping off of the top of the pile.

"Thanks, dear. Could you stick these on the clothesline?" She asked, handing me the small pile of folded blankets.

"Sure. Do you want me to beat the dust out of them?"

"Yes…" She stopped for a moment and tapped her chin in thought, "The wire beater's next to the sink."

"…Wasn't it in the cellar last time?" I asked skeptically.

"Probably. I'll have to talk to Fran about moving things around."

I shrugged, "Ah well. Be right back."

Minutes later, I left for the house loaded down with saddle blankets. Hanging them up as quickly as possible, I went inside and rooted around the kitchen for the wire beater. Before I went near the clothesline I reached into my pocket and hurriedly tied a small handkerchief over my nose.

There is almost nothing more satisfying in the world than hitting an old piece of fabric or upholstery and seeing the dust fly out of it. In this case, it was a nearly-opaque cloud of reddish dust and hair that had accumulated over a month.

I poked the defeated rug one last time and moved onto the next one.

That stupid songbird just wouldn't. Shut. Up.

I groaned, curling into myself on my bed. My pillow had been tossed to the side sometime last night, so I groped the floor blindly, shielding my eyes from the sun with my scratchy blankets. Finding the soft lump, I gently tugged the pillow to the bed and covered my face. The cool fabric settled and soothed my fevered head.

It was really humid today.

I laid there quietly, simply enjoying being able to relax. A minor migraine pounded behind my closed eyes and I twitched, annoyed. I was thirsty too, now that I thought about it. Grumbling, I rolled onto my back and stretched luxuriously.

The sheer amount of early morning light from my window drew me up short. I had woken up late.

I quickly got dressed and left my room. The shriek of the rusty hinges stabbed into my eardrums as I opened my door. Wincing, I slowly edged into the kitchen. Surprisingly, or perhaps not-so-surprisingly, there was no one there. The house was strangely empty; mother probably already had gone out into the orchard to water the trees.

A quick check into father's room confirmed that he wasn't inside either. Mildly worried, I grabbed a fresh apple to snack on and rushed outside. There was no one in the outhouse, mother wasn't in the orchard or the henhouse, and there had been no sign of father anywhere.

At my wits end and not wanting to search the entire property, I made my way towards the barn.

"Mom?" I called, and I heard some burlap sacks shift around as someone moved them. Mother's head peered around the edge of the dividing wall, her long black hair pulled into a tight bun.

Her green eyes homed in on me, and she smiled. "Lisa! It's good to see you up."

"Sorry for sleeping in…" I blinked, looking around at the mess on the floor. It seemed like she was reorganizing the tools and feed, but… "Why aren't you working in the henhouse?"

"I did that yesterday," she replied as she pulled the wheelbarrow out of the pie of junk in the tool nook. I hurried to help, stopping the rakes and shovels from destabilizing and falling to the ground. Mother sent me a grateful look and moved the wheelbarrow away.

I shook my head once we had stabilized the tools, "No… that can't be right. Yesterday you said you were going to work on it in a day or two."

Mother paused in her work and stilled, looking at me in concern, "You... don't remember?"

"...Remember what?" I asked, carefully.

Mother stilled, and crossed her arms. "Doctor Yeager came two days ago. He gave Anton the rest of the medicine. You had the final treatment, too."

My stomach dropped.

It happened already?

"No… That's… I can't…" I stuttered.

I just fell asleep...

Mother looked at me in concern. "He left last night. You don't remember?"

No, I realized with shock, I didn't. "I…No. What happened?"

Mother shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and reached for a bridle hanging up on one of the pegs. "Anton's up and walking now. Doctor Yeager ran a few tests and told me you had a very positive response."

"Did… was there anything else?" I asked, hoping desperately, pleading, for something, anything.

"…He mentioned that temporary short-term memory loss was a trend for his treatments."

And that more than anything left me speechless. I had expected something like this to happen, but how could I even react when I realized that two days had disappeared?

"That's… good?" I hesitantly continued, brain still attempting to process the fact that I had lost two days.

Mother wrapped up the lead on the bridle and placed it aside, reaching for another one, "You're awake; I'd say it's very good. Do you feel well enough to keep helping me out with this?"

Listlessly, I shrugged and replied, "Yeah…"

"Thank you."

I quietly hauled the feed bags mom waved me towards, mulling this information over.

Whatever I had done those days... It was gone. Lost. Disappeared, stolen, however you wanted to put it. I wouldn't know what happened then. I still had no idea whether I had written down what had happened in my journal.

But...

Mother had said it was the 'last of the treatments' - I was done and finished with those cursed injections.

Something of my conflicted emotions must have shown in my face or body language, because mother stopped working and turned to face me with a concerned frown on her face.

"I know your memories are important to you, Lisa. If it helps, Doctor Yeager mentioned that the symptoms weren't chronic and that it stopped after the first day or so."

That was… somewhat comforting, at least. I didn't respond, instead noisily moving some wooden sheets we usually used for roofing over to the side. Thinking back on what I was doing now... I didn't remember anything I would have felt just before Yeager would have given me the shot.

I was just left with an empty, lost feeling. It was over, done with.

I could have been angry, I could have tried to reason this out, but the situation with Yeager had been going on for so long I was relieved that I couldn't remember what had happened. There was only empty, numb acceptance.

It was finally over. Raging against the sky wouldn't do anything at this point, even though the decision felt like it had been taken out of my hands.

So I quietly worked, relieved that I wouldn't have to deal with the pressure of Yeager's visits anymore.

Did you know...?

Bleach powder was patented by the Scottish chemist Charles Tennant in 1799. He was fortunate enough to have been schooled as a child, and almost became a textile weaver instead of a chemist.

Reactions? Please? My muse wishes to hear all of your voices! I can see you there, lurking, reading my story... :) So drop me a line!

Thank you EVERYONE for reading - I hit over 1500 views with chapter five at the posting of this chapter!

See you next time!

Chapter 7  
Cheh. Next chapter AHOY!

This chapter has been betaed by the patient White Ink Penpal!

Father came home later that night.

He had taken Damien and gone out into the forest to replace the traps. Seeing him up and able to walk around on his own nearly brought me to my knees in relief.

Yes, I knew that Yeager had taken care of my father. Actually seeing it... It had finally eradicated any lingering doubt. I may have known that Yeager was the best we could hope for, but I was beyond relieved to see that mother's trust wasn't misplaced, in spite of the cost.

Father dismounted and walked towards the house. I ran from behind mother and tackle-hugged him.

"Oof! Lisa, careful!" He laughed, his one free arm circling around my tiny frame.

"Sorry dad." I pushed away from him and got a good look at his face, grinning widely. "You look so much better."

He smiled, and for once his face didn't droop or tense in exhaustion. He stretched, and I could see that he was breathing much more easily than he had in days. "I feel a lot better," He chuckled, "Hey, I'm starved. What's for dinner?"

"We have a stew... Is that a rabbit?" I asked, pointing at the bag in his other arm.

"Yep." He hefted his catch and grinned, "Got it with the crossbow when I went near the creek."

Mother walked up and drew father into an embrace. He gave her a kiss then, smiling, both of them turned and walked towards the house hand in hand.

My smile disappeared. I still had to finish checking one more thing.

After dinner I quietly excused myself and made my way into my room and quickly looked through all of the usual hiding places. My searching finally bore fruit; a couple of pages of paper under my pillow scribbled in English.

I sat down and tried to decipher my chicken-scratch shorthand.

Tuesday - Goat acting weird; might have rabies. Penned separately. Fran came and terrorized chickens (as per usual). Beat out saddle blankets. Returned blankets to barn. Worked in orchard. Yeager arrived near two o'clock - treated dad (very confident about effectiveness of antibiotics round). Doctor Yeager has given me the final treatment. Will write more after resting.

Ate dinner - no tiredness, no memory loss, nothing new. Went to bed.

Wednesday - Woke up approximately nine o'clock in the morning - experiencing memory loss from around two thirty in the afternoon on Tuesday. Yeager assured me and mother it was a harmless trend. Claimed memory loss never exceeded eight hours. Yeager asked to take me for walk around property with mother's consent. Has given her and me time frame shorter than two minutes. Mother approved. Time is nearly twelve noon. Will write more after returning.

There was a full half sheet of blank space left over. I folded the paper into my journal and put it away, a distinctly uncomfortable feeling pooling in my gut. It went without saying that I had been brought to my room unconscious after that 'walk'.

I could take a little comfort in the fact that mother didn't seem too concerned about yesterday.

And yet...

There was something off about this entire situation.

I needed to test and see if there were any noticeable changes since the last injection. Pulling out my whittling knife with a grimace, I braced myself and poked my thumb. A drop of steaming blood escaped from the cut before it bubbled shut almost instantaneously.

That was a much faster heal time than before.

Unnerved, I put away my tools and crawled into my bed. Mother and father were staying out of the master bedroom until I cleaned it, so I waited for them to settle down. After their bustling subsided and their breathing evened out, I carefully got up and made my way out of the house.

A quick stop to the dark, creaky barn yielded a long knotted rope, and I made my way towards the well.

I needed to know.

I hit the packed dirt at the bottom of the well and shook my tingling feet; I really should have let myself down a little more before dropping. Without really giving myself time to think about what I was doing, I reached up, drew my hand towards my mouth, and bit.

I felt a flash of fear as I realized that something was different this time.

Something outside of my control stretched and snapped. A flash of lightning lit the inside of the pit, and then steam was everywhere.

Pure force slammed into my body and head. A moment passed. I was on the ground with blood pouring from my nose. Blood seeped from the gouges in my hand and tremors racked my body as the air became filled with heat and haze. A strangled cough made its way past my throat.

It hurt.

It hurt so much.

I must have passed out for a while - I blinked, and the moon jumped from somewhere near the horizon to almost directly overhead. Coughing one final time, I rolled over and began hauling myself up the rope.

Making my way back to my room was an adventure in itself. I was exhausted from whatever stunt I had pulled, and it was around three in the morning by the time I finally succeeded in staggering into my house. It was dark and quiet. The hinges had been freshly oiled, so I pushed the wooden door open without a sound. I carefully picked my way past the creaky floorboards of the front room and looked over the sleeping forms of my dad and mom on the couch. Father was doing much better and sleeping far, far more peacefully than he had for the past month.

After pushing my bedroom door open quietly, I collapsed onto the bed with a muffled groan. Lifting my freshly-healed hand in front of my face for inspection, I sighed. Whatever I had done was sure as hell not titan shifting. Instead of successfully transforming into a humanoid mass of muscle and bone, I had done a rather stunning impression of a smoke bomb.

Damn that hurt; I was definitely going to avoid doing whatever the hell that was, at all costs.

It was a miracle that mother and father hadn't woken up from the noise of whatever that was.

I let my hand drop at my side and buried my face into my pillow.

Here I had proof that I was experimented on with the titan shifter serum. It was painfully obvious to me that the formula was still incomplete - the sheer amount of backlash all but proved it. It was pain like nothing I'd ever felt before, and I had no idea how badly I had injured myself with that stunt.

But I hadn't transformed - I only succeeded in generating a large amount of steam. That brought a kind of relief in itself, since titan shifting was inherently dangerous. The shifters in the story... they had to deal with the very real possibility of losing their life, losing control, losing themselves...

With this... I knew that I probably wasn't able turn into one of those monsters. I was still me.

I rolled over and tried to fall asleep.

The next day crawled by slowly, as it tends to do when waiting for something important. But eventually the day was done and everyone in the house was finally asleep. I quietly made my way to the edge of the well with a box under my arm and a blank journal under the other.

Mother had promised me that Yeager had said that this was the last injection. I was… unsure about what to feel at this point.

On one hand, I was done. Finished. I didn't have to deal with him anymore. On the other… What would happen next?

I built a fire beside the hole in the ground. It flickered, becoming a tiny thing that barely gave me enough light to read by. I set more fuel on it and let the flame grow hotter before setting a small branch into the middle. I coaxed the flames higher into a smokeless burn, watching as the fire licked hungrily through the wood.

Blinking spots out of my eyes, I turned and picked up the box full of my secrets from where I had set it down beside me. I read each page in turn, verifying and refreshing my memory before rewriting (in English) everything important in my new leather bound book.

With each new page copied I felt the burden of my memories lighten, just a little, as the knowledge that I wouldn't have to worry about any more of those memory-erasing injections finally sank in.

With a relieved sigh I threw the journal into the fire, leather covering and all. The odor of scorched leather wafted from the smoke, causing my nose to wrinkle in distaste.

Nasty.

I didn't do anything for a few minutes; just watched the fire eat away at the journal with a kind of heavy resignation.

Then I let myself smile.

A moment passed, and the tension between my shoulders that I had felt for so long slowly melted into relief.

Not having to worry about the next change of seasons when Grisha came… not having to worry about losing myself to the chemicals anymore… it was nearly euphoric.

A moment later, I giggled.

The dam I had shored up for my emotions ever since that fateful day five years ago finally cracked, just a little. Then it broke. I laughed once again, but it came out as a sob. No one was around, so I gave up on appearances and lost the battle to keep my emotions contained. I let myself fall into hysterical laughter as I threw the last pieces of paper into the fire.

I was done. I was still me. It was finished, finally.

The cheap scraps caught easily and fluttered, rising up with the convection current from the fire into the starry, clear sky.

The winter passed surprisingly quickly. The heavy blizzards came once again, and with it a shortage of available food. Fran stayed at my house more often than not, snowed in with the rest of us.

All the better for her; we were wealthy enough to have stored extra supplies. The orphanage was barely scraping by, even with the support from the locals. My parents were fine with her staying over, and no one else complained about the amount of time she spent at our place.

My ninth birthday passed, and I received a small set of whittling tools made by my father. I was extremely happy about this - aside from taking care of the animals there was nothing to do except read, carve, and lay around all day when snowed in. On another note, father and I had decided to sculpt a life-size bear from some spare wood.

Fran helped us to carry the wood, and even helped to start the deeper cuts for the legs and torso. Father took care of the head and the finer details, while I slaved away on the legs and claws. Fran and mother kept up a steady stream of chatter in the background while we worked. The fire roared in the hearth. Occasionally we threw our woodchips at the grate.

Spring came, but weeks passed and Yeager didn't come to our house. I asked mother if she had heard of anything, but she shook her head.

"I don't know. However, I am content in knowing that both you and Anton are healthy and safe. That's all I wanted."

Shrugging, I went over to the whittling wood box and pulled out a small plank of walnut. Settling down on "my" rocking chair, I looked up at mom as I began to carve a small wooden doll. "When are the traders coming down?"

Mother shrugged and looked at the small calendar planner she had made a month or two ago on a particularly slow day, "Maybe next week."

Her prediction was accurate; five days later, the traders arrived.

The caravan of carts ranged from the ramshackle to the freshly painted. Dust puffed into the air and hung suspended, getting between the cracks of our house and onto everything.

Despite the mess, it always was fun to watch the parade of carts ride into town. Better still was seeing the few carts that actually gave me decent prices for my wares arrive.

"Rimes! Good to see you!" I called, hauling a large sack over my shoulder filled with wood carvings.

Rimes's head jerked up in surprise. He turned away from where he was setting up his cart with a raised eyebrow and pleased grin.

"Lisa? You've grown, squirt! How've you been? How're your parents?"

"We've been great! Father had a bit of trouble with chest dropsy, but mom found a good doctor for him. He's all healthy now."

"The dropsy?" He frowned in concern, "That's bad luck, there. Good to hear he recovered, neh?"

I nodded, "Yessir. Hey, whaddya have for me this year?" I asked with a grin as I set the bag down next to the chests he had already brought out.

"I found a new mix of walnut oil you might like for curing your projects. It's got some linseed in it. You wouldn't believe the trouble I had to go through to pick it up from the Utopia District."

My eyebrows involuntarily crept up my forehead. "You have it with you now?"

"Yeah, I knew you or your father would want a look at it. It's in the back, let me finish setting up the wagon and I'll let you have first dibs."

I nodded and leaned against his cart as he walked towards the back. His horse nickered, and I turned to look at it.

Tall, stocky, and proud, the Ardennes looked over its broad shoulder and whickered softly at me. I slowly walked in front of it and patted its broad flank. The horse gave me a long sniff, then decided I wasn't interesting and went back to whatever it was staring at before.

I sighed, giving him a few more scratches before returning to my previous spot.

Rimes came back around the cart, hauling a heavy table. I hurried to help him set it down. He let out his breath in a heavy woosh, face red and sweaty.

"Thanks, kid. Irma sure knew how to raise her daughter."

I shrugged awkwardly, not knowing how to respond to that. Rimes shook his arm out and turned back around.

"Ah well. Lemme get the display."

I followed him into the wagon silently. He opened up the rear of his cart, and the smell of wood, oils, and herbs poured out and caressed my face invitingly. His wares were piled in a nearly organized mess, ranging from rare preserves to seeds to furniture, dyes and cloth to candy, and tools.

Not just farm tools or regular tools, oh no. Specialized tools. Watchmaker's screwdrivers and gears, tiny glass lenses, and fine mirrored cases that cost more than I could hope to make in four years.

I wrenched my gaze away from the drool-inducing sight and helped Rimes haul out a heavy chest made from a rare dark wood. We set it on the table with a heavy thump, and Rimes set about to unlocking it while I stood back.

The main road was bustling with life at this hour. The early morning fog had burned off, leaving a bright, clear day with a stiff breeze.

"Here we go…"

I turned towards the table just as he pulled out a palm-sized bottle of oil.

"This beauty took me a while to get. I had to haggle down the price from twenty-three silvers."

I raised an eyebrow and chuckled, talking a closer look at the offered bottle. The nutty fragrance of walnut wafted around his hand, covering the dusty smell of travel that usually clung to his clothes.

"That's enough for half of a good horse out here… I'm sure your silver tongue ensured you didn't have to pay nearly as much as that."

"Right you are," he agreed cheerily, "But I still have to feed the missus and the horse, see."

I nodded, "True, but I can't just part with twenty-five silvers like that. I don't even have that much saved up."

Rimes snorted. "Don't try that with me. You scalped me last time I was here, girl. If it wasn't for how well you made those emblem plaques, I wouldn't have made any profit at all."

I held my hands up defensively, "Now there, I wasn't saying I was gonna cheat you. You still interested in giving me a discount on that oil if I throw in a couple of emblem sets?"

"Maybe. I need to see their quality first."

I shrugged, retrieving the sack from where I had left it, "Yeah, yeah, you miser. Hold your horses…" I muttered as pulled out my wares and presented them to his professional eye.

Rimes hummed, picking up a plaque with the training corps seal etched into the surface, "I see yeh've been experimenting with staining."

I finished arranging the four sets I had made down on the table, carefully displaying the pictures I had painstakingly carved and spent so much time on.

"I might as well," I demurred. "They always look so lifeless without that extra definition."

"True, that. There are a couple customers of mine who've been looking for some sculptures. Batty collectors." He scoffed, shaking his head. "Ah well, who am I to complain? Those rich folk in the middle cities have way too much time on their hands."

I snorted, amused, "I wouldn't know."

Rimes shrugged his broad shoulders as he shook his head. "Trust me, kid. You wouldn't like it there."

I sighed, switching the topic back on track, "You and I both know you'd get a full thirty silvers per set if you sold them at once."

"An' I obviously can't pay ya that much. Three silvers per set for these three; five for the fourth."

I scowled at the low price, "Fourteen silvers? That's highway robbery, and you know it."

He grinned unrepentantly, replying, "A man's gotta make a living somehow, sweet cheeks."

I sighed in irritation, mentally tallying a 'fair' price for my wares and tripling it, "I'll need at least twenty-one from you per set."

"Twenty-! I still need to pay for transporting these to the cities! five!" He counter-offered.

Better, but all told it was still too low. I tightened my lips. "Eighteen per."

"Thirty-nine total, and nothing more brat," he growled, rolling his fingers on the surface of the table.

I tilted my head, considering for a moment. "You're lucky I don't need to manage a household yet…" I trailed off.

Rimes gave me a Look.

I sighed, "Fiiiiiiine. Sold."

He shook his head in frustration, gathering the plaques and storing them in the back, "If these weren't in such high demand…"

"Eh, I'd just carve something else. You're not getting rid of me that easily."

"True, that," he agreed, pulling out the small bottle and rolling it around in his palm. "So, I'll start the bidding of this lovely oil for forty-five silvers."

I glared at him, "You rat."

He held his hands up in surrender with a cheeky grin, "A man's gotta eat."

"And that oil's not worth nearly that much," I retorted, "I could go and buy from the Claes cart, instead…"

"You wouldn't buy anything from that quack and we both know it," he stated flatly, not amused at my empty threat.

I shrugged, "I gotta try, right? Ten silvers."

He snorted, "That's an insult. Thrity-five, and that strange cat thing with the detail and stained spots."

"Now who's kidding who?" I scoffed, folding my arms across my chest, "I need to save for my vacation, and the cat's gonna be separate, I think. Twelve."

"Vacation? What vacation? Thirty with the cat, though that's against my better judgment. Where you headed off to?"

"I've always wanted to see Trost in the summer. And I can't pay that much for the oil," I replied. "Fifteen, and I keep the cat."

"Twenty-seven. With the cat," he responded with a heavy sigh, "Trost isn't really worth going to see, kid. It's a textile town; that's pretty much it."

"Really?" I asked skeptically. "Twenty, without the cat. I can't really say I've been in a place like that."

Rimes shrugged, "Twenty-five, with the cat. It's not a place worth noting. The Garrison's corrupt, and the Military Police hang over your shoulder all the time. Not like out here. "

I rolled my eyes and dug through my bag for something else to put on the table. "Well, the Garrison and Military Police are like that everywhere… Twenty-one, with the cat and this bear."

He picked up the bear I offered and eyed it over critically.

"…Alright," he sighed, setting the bear down on the table and pushing the oil towards me. "There's more Military Police officers the further you go in. Better living conditions in there - no one wants outer ring duty."

Money and figurines changed hands. Counting through the cash I had left inside of my purse I asked, "Alright. So, how much did you actually pay for this thing?"

He suddenly gained a smug air about him, responding with one of the widest grins I had ever seen. "Eight silvers and a cast-iron skillet that cost me around five silvers."

"…I feel really cheated," I groused, collecting my purchase and placing it in the smaller sack I had kept inside the larger one.

"Nah, don't. I can count on one hand who I'd give this kind of a discount to, and my wife's one of them."

Snorting in derision, I replied, "Discount? Really?" I picked up my much lighter pack. "Ah well. Take care of the bobcat, you hear?"

"What's a 'bobkaut'?" He asked, trying the strange English term on his tongue.

I ignored how he mangled the word. I couldn't find any local equivalent, so I went with what I knew. "Kind of like the lynx from up north, but from a country overseas."

He shook his head, "You kids have the craziest ideas nowadays. 'Bobkaut.' Hah."

"It's a unique piece," I responded with a shrug, "I'm probably not gonna make another anytime soon."

"Yeah, yeah," He waved me off, a speculative gleam in his eyes, "I'll weave a suitably impressive tale about this mythical 'bobkaut.' Thanks for the trades, kid. Make sure to tell your friends to come over if they need some sweets, hmm? They're straight from the Klorva District."

I laughed and nodded, giving him a wave as I walked away, "Sure, you old coot. Be sure to tell your wife I said 'hi'."

"Will do. Now get out of here before you scare the other customers away."

I gave a mocking eyebrow-touching salute, earning me a weird look from Rimes. I trotted towards the other wood trader with a snicker.

Summer passed just as miserably as usual. There was news of a drought hitting the western end of the walls, but we had the luck to live in an area far enough away that we weren't affected.

Of course, the end of summertime was always heralded by the start of school.

"But mo-om!" I whined as she pushed me out the door into the muggy morning. It was going to be a horrid day; the fog had already burned off, and the sun had only been up for less than an hour.

"No buts."

"I don't wanna go to school! It's so boring!" I whined.

"And you need to say that you attended school in order to get a decent job," she sighed, shooing me out of the house.

I grumbled and obediently trotted off towards the village. I'd probably take a nap when I got there if the teacher didn't pry the windows open.

Fran had left the orphanage by the time I arrived at the town, so I silently made my way through the muggy streets alone. I wiped the sweat off of my forehead and stepped into the small schoolroom. What I wouldn't do for some cold weather right now…

I endured the start of the year with my usual longsuffering (that is, I sweated like a pig until the seasons began to change). But then the weather turned rainy as fall arrived. Today was one of those rainy days - water poured out of the sky in torrents. The cool was a welcome change form the summer heat, even though mother was shivering without her coat. We were dusting and wiping down most of the flat surfaces around the house, carefully working around the fine china and baubles mother was so fond of displaying.

A knock came at the door, and mother left her cleaning rag on the table to answer it. I idly glanced out the front window and saw a familiar horse and cart tied to our front fence.

Did you know...?

According to livescience, Justus von Liebig invented the silvered-glass mirror in 1835. Within a few years his process was refined; mass production eventually let most families in the industrialized world afford 'looking glasses'.

 

Chapter 8  
This chapter had been betaed by the irreplaceable White Ink Penpal!

The rag dripped onto the counter.

After wiping up the mess, I hurried towards my room. Father and mother were already moving to answer the door, and I could hear loud greetings exchanged in the doorway. I carefully looked around the small room, then picked my way over the wood floor and dropped on the bed.

The front door creaked shut, and I could hear father boom cheerily, "Doctor! It's good to see you so well!"

The lighter footsteps of my mother echoed in the living room as she walked away from the kitchen. Yeager cleared his throat, and his voice wormed around the cracks in the floor and door, "And you as well, Anton. Have you or Irma had any trouble?"

I could hear father pull a chair in the kitchen out from under the table. "Not really. I had some problems with the pollen a month back, but the season change cleared most of that up."

Clothe rustled and hard objects clattered against wood. A chair creaked from weight being sat upon it and was scooted across the wooden floorboards. In the noise I could barely hear Yeager's muffled reply, "Good to hear, good to hear. I'm afraid this will be the last you've seen of me for a while."

"Really?" I could hear my father's surprise as the scraping stopped. "Then, I must thank you for all that you've done for my family."

Yeager moved around, and clothes rustled as he gestured, "I should be thanking you. Your daughter has helped my research immensely. I need a final blood test, and then I'll be leaving."

"So soon?" Father pressed.

"You're one of the last families I usually visit; I'm already running late as it is. I've scheduled a fairly important meeting within a few days, and I must be back at Shiganshina by then."

"Well, make yourself comfortable then. Lisa?"

Taking that as my cue to leave my room, I mutely rolled off of the mattress and walked through the door. Yeager was sitting at the table and setting up his equipment. I pulled a chair out and took a seat silently.

Yeager met my eyes carefully, "Hello again, Lisa."

I nodded stiffly in reply, "Yeager."

Mother called father into the living room, and he left the room to help her after making sure I was comfortable. I rolled my fingers on the surface of the table, tension singing across my arms. "This is the last sample?"

Yeager 'hmmed' in the affirmative. "For the foreseeable future. If I need another one, I'll be sure to contact your family."

"...I understand."

Yeager worked silently for a few moments, pulling a couple of empty syringes from a case filled with alcohol. He carefully set those aside to air out, then tapped the table a couple of times as he thought, "How has the farm been?" he asked as he glanced toward me.

I frowned before replying neutrally, "Busy. One of our cows died last winter."

He gave me a sympathetic nod, "That's unfortunate. Did you like her?"

Shaking my head no, I replied, "Not really. She was a mean one. I did like her milk though."

"I see. What about the crops?"

Shrugging, I replied, "I'm sure you've heard of the drought out west. We had good prices this year."

Yeager clicked his tongue, "Yes, there's a food shortage in the inner cities."

He withdrew the syringe he had assembled. "Hold still, please." He asked, bringing the tool closer to me.

I nodded and I held out my arm. A pinprick, and he had what he needed.

"Thank you, Lisa."

As he put away the sample morbid, wicked curiosity reared its ugly head. It was nearly the end of year 844 – Eren would have stopped the slavers from kidnapping Mikasa by now... Before I could stop myself, I asked, "How's your son doing?"

Yeager hesitated for a split second, confirming my suspicions. Multiple emotions flitted across his face, but finally his eyes settled into a sad weariness before he me met my gaze.

"He's doing fine."

I nodded, and let the subject drop. He worked in silence for a while, scribbled a few lines on a notebook, and placed the sample inside of the small cold box.

"How long does that stay insulated?" I asked, curious.

Yeager tapped the box. "If I don't open it, it can stays cold for up to three weeks. Here, feel the outside."

I touched it. Surprisingly, it wasn't cold at all. In fact, it was nearly room temperature. "Amazing. The case isn't absorbing any heat."

Insulating a container like this... we had cold boxes, but those were generally found in the cities. I hadn't heard of anyone actually improving on the idea. The case was somewhat light too. That was enough to bring me up short - the cold-box was years ahead of its time. Where did he get this thing?

Yeager looked at me in surprise, "Yes… How did you learn about that?"

My lips twisted in remembrance as I leaned back into my chair, "…I read about it in a book." Technically true, even if the book was from fifteen years or so before I died.

Yeager tilted his head curiously, and his glasses flashed dully in the sunlight. "Most children your age wouldn't understand a concept like that."

"Most children don't like reading." I retorted.

Yeager gathered his tools together. "If only books were cheaper to make, and education was given a higher priority…" He trailed off.

I shrugged.

He sighed and put away the last the equipment before turning back to me, "I know you've been subjected to a lot because of my treatment, and for that, I am sorry. I only hope that you can forgive me someday."

My thoughts ground to a halt.

What.

Abruptly standing, I turned to face him fully and crossed my arms. His expression wasn't guarded, it was resigned.

Disgust twisted in my gut. "After all I've been through…" I trailed off, mind clouded by anger, "You only saved my father's life after I agreed to your terms. You used me like some test animal. You bribed my parents."

He folded his hands on the table, "I don't want to justify my actions. Your sacrifice has helped humanity immensely."

My stomach turned. He looked so... comfortable saying those words; it was obvious he had come to that conclusion some time ago; possibly years, even. Despite all that I knew and what I was feeling, I did understand his position. Here, in this culture, everyone had a right to ask for forgiveness. Already, I could hear this mentality rise to justify the actions of this man - after all, he is a great man; an asset to humankind.

I stepped back from my conflicting emotions. I needed to look at this situation with clean, simple, logic.

The fact that I was still alive stopped me from flying into a rage at the presumption... I cut that train of thought off and took a deep breath.

No. Step back. List the facts.

Father had been cured. The man in front of me had saved at least tens of thousands of lives. I'm still alive. The man was well regarded for his scientific achievements.

...Those facts didn't excuse what had happened.

"I see." I responded, leaning back into my chair. I gave a tired, hissing laugh and sneered, "My 'sacrifice'... hah. I'm pleased to be alive, at the very least." I flung my barbed words without meeting his eyes. A moment passed, but there was no hitch in his breath, only steady breathing.

Maybe he did care, just not in the way I thought was 'right'. Maybe he did truly want to help other people, or at least 'humanity'... I turned and faced him, and met his impassive mask of a face.

"You know, there's a hard freeze coming in two days. It would be unfortunate to get caught outside in it."

Yes, I hated him.

But I couldn't continue feeding that hatred. A friend of mine once said that hating someone else is like holding coals to your chest - it's a great motivator, but in the end you're the only one that gets burned. If I kept nursing my resentment it would cloud my judgment. I would have to deal with self-sustaining paranoia and delusions. If even encountered anything vaguely reminiscent of this man...

I wouldn't be able to help myself or my family if I fell into a panic attack whenever I went to a clinic. I wouldn't be able to function if I lived in fear that Yeager was going to return.

The justification was much easier to stomach when I knew that I probably wouldn't see Yeager again.

The doctor nodded towards me in acceptance of my olive branch. "Thank you."

December came, and Fran turned ten.

We almost forgot about her birthday in the flurry of panic. Everyone was preparing for the immense storm the elders had predicted, and it looked like a bad one. We already had cirrus clouds for two days, and a heavy storm front had begun to move in.

Father was forced to tie one of our thickest ropes between the house and the barn as a handhold and guide through the potential whiteout conditions. Mother had stockpiled as much wood inside and on our porch as she could gather, and moved all of the chickens and goats into a spare pen inside of the barn.

Fran shamelessly began sleeping over, cocooned in some of our spare quilts.

"Your food's better anyway," she would complain at the dinner table, wearing two of our old sweaters as she gulped down some wheat porridge.

I helped around where I cold, tying down coverings, dusting old blankets retrieved from storage out, and gathering dry branches whenever I could.

In the town, shop windows were covered to preserve as much heat as possible for the inhabitants. The price of firewood skyrocketed, and tallow and preserved food rapidly flew off of the shelves. It was a hectic time, but eventually the preparations were completed and everyone settled down as the sun set.

The blizzard hit us the next day.

For a full week the town was hammered by the storm. Trees shattered in the subzero temperatures, crackling like thunder over the frozen fields and hills. Snow piled up around the house, insulating it against the howling winds and shrieking sleet.

A few days later, some of our animals fell ill. Father was forced to isolate them in a corner of the already-crowded barn.

The snow covered the sky and turned day into night. In the darkness, Fran and I amused ourselves with old corncobs we fashioned into dolls with scraps of rags mother had rejected when making wicks.

Watering the animals had become a major issue. Any water source had been frozen over (in fact, we couldn't use the pump in our house for fear of the pipes breaking), so we had to melt buckets of snow and ice inside of the house. Father or mother then had to haul the buckets into the barn.

As for milking... The wind was so stiff; returning with the milk became an adventure in itself. Sometimes, the temperatures were so cold that the pail would be halfway frozen before they made it to the house. This didn't always happen; more often than not a gust of wind would upend the pail, spilling it all over the frozen ground.

Days passed and the snow kept coming. The house was sturdily built and easily withstood the weight on top of it without groaning. Well, too much, at least.

The same could not be said of the henhouse.

An immense crash came from the outside on the second to last day of the blizzard. Almost all of us had been jolted into varying states of alertness. Father sighed and went back to his workbench, whittling away at some replacement doorknobs for those that had been ruined by the cold. We all quietly followed his example ans went back to what we were doing before.

The storm finally blew itself out, letting us all out of our houses to survey the damage.

Two old hens died from the cold, one of our calves was sick, the henhouse had partially collapsed and needed to be replaced. The well was nearly covered with a foot of snow, and the top had frozen over.

At least we could still melt the snow for water, but it was an unfortunate inconvenience. We fixed what we could and went on with our lives. A few weeks later, another storm rolled through.

Then another.

And another.

Each month, we had to deal with heavy snow for half of the time, and at least one blizzard every three weeks.

People began to fall to cabin fever or illness. A fever ran rampant throughout the town. Fran didn't set foot in the orphanage for two months - father and mother didn't mind.

But we were fortunate. We stayed inside the warm house, with high spirits. We had enough things to do to not worry about cabin fever.

Spring came, but something was off about the new season.

We never really did get to travel to inner walls.

The sky burned.

I shielded my eyes, peeing up at the thin ice clouds that heralded the change of seasons with a frown. I smelled smoke today.

Father and mother were both worried, though they had tried to hide it. The winter had been hard, but more worrying was that the spring rains hadn't come. The fields were dry, and the wheat we had sown wasn't growing. The stalks were barely ankle-high and dry as a bone. The first wheat harvest came and went, but the fields hadn't produced any decent grain.

A town meeting was called, and food rationing became a major topic of discussion for a week or so. The drought was only a minor cause of worry - we had gone through weather similar to this before, but we were forced to remain around our farm to keep an eye on the situation in case the weather worsened.

We had fewer trader caravans come through the next market week. The ones that did arrive told us that the drought had affected the entire countryside, from the western wall to the southeast. At this news, we bought as much preserved food as needed and restocked our already full cellar, regardless of cost. Even before we purchased the food we were self-sufficient enough that we would have been fine for at least two seasons. By now, we were even able to support Fran and her habit of practically living at our house.

We had another worry, however. Poorer people that worked menial tasks and labored in the fields lost their jobs when it became apparent that this growing season would be a waste. They took to the countryside, hunting and scavenging what they could.

But some didn't know how to survive outside. Our livestock were continually threatened by thieves and wanderers looking for a free meal. We had to sell most of our birds and the two cows after someone stole the milk goat out from underneath our noses.

Father had taken to keeping his single-shot pistol within easy reach, and after we heard news of a family being attacked near the forest I never went anywhere without my largest whittling knife.

Normally, temporary food shortages were relatively commonplace in the outer walls, so we and the town had been prepared for this reality. Droughts, winds blowing away topsoil, and overworked fields all contributed to the spotty production from farmers in the outer rings. They even threatened our farm on occasion, but usually there were more than enough farming towns to make up for the lack of production. This was the first time I had seen that over half of the outer wall failed to produce enough grain to feed itself.

But then the summer rains came, heavy and long, and hopes began to rise for a better growing season.

Or last crop was nonexistent, but the next growing period came and father and I worked the fields with wheat and sorghum. Though we were still having issues with the lack of groundwater, we were able to salvage three-quarters of the crop within six weeks. The farmers collaborated their efforts, and a number of families including the Andersens, the Nowaks, the Barbus, and the Malakars were able to support the village until the early fall harvest.

Despite the drought of Wall Maria the year before, no one had expected such a widespread drought to happen. The severity of the food shortage made itself known within the month. Despite the aid that had come from Mitras through Trost, it wasn't enough. There were still deaths; mostly the homeless and poor.

Fall came, and the harvest was healthy and plentiful enough that we could help support a couple of nearby villages. Tensions around the town settled, but the scars that the shortage had left behind were painfully apparent when I returned to school.

We walked through the quiet streets, giving polite greetings to the people as we passed them by. Multiple empty seats greeted me as I walked into the schoolroom for the first time in months. We entered the school building and sat, waiting for the other children to file in.

Only two thirds of the class made it that day.

Most were only staying home to care for ill family or friends, but there were always the few who were part of families that weren't well off enough to emerge unscathed.

Seven families had been attacked by slavers; two mothers and three fathers were dead. No one knew where their children had gone. Bandits had raided the food stores, causing multiple families to go without food for weeks on end. Several of the children couldn't handle the starvation conditions they were subjected to. In other parts of the town, at least twenty graves had been dug by the undertakers for the wandering homeless that couldn't support themselves.

But time passed, and we lived as we had before. In the end, what could we do other than offer our condolences to the families? What was done was done. It was a fact of life out here.

Fran tugged me off to the side, whispering a question about one of the math problems on the third class reader.

Today was unusually quiet. A light breeze started some time ago, playing through the grass in the meadows. Crops, barely poking through the ground after the series of heavy rains we had waved in the breeze. A man was plowing his fields in the early morning cool, his two donkeys still damp with dew. Puffly clouds sailed across the sky, and the humidity had returned with a vengeance after the rain yesterday. The winds blew through the fields from the southwest today, the whispers foretelling cold weather and changing seasons.

Fran and I slowly made our way through the town.

Sometime during the food shortage Fran had been adopted by our family in all but name, even to the point that she and I shared the bedroom and closet space.

It was nice, in a way, but there were other things I was more worried about. It was fall. The year was now 845, and Wall Maria had not been breached yet.

The rains had come through and everything was still green, but that wouldn't last long. Cattle lowed in the distance, eating their fill from the tender grass that covered the fields.

The town was quiet and still.

Every time we turned the corner, we ran across more empty streets stretching before us. The shortage had affected everyone, though some more than others. At least one in ten people in our town had left for family in the northern cities, or were homeless and wandering the countryside after the cost of living in the town became too expensive.

No traders came this season either, but it wasn't too much of a deal for my family. There wasn't anything to offer anyways - all of it had either been thrown out or sold to surrounding villages for food already. I hadn't carved anything in what felt like years even though it had only been a few weeks.

Fran's thin arms hugged her classroom reader close to her chest. I sighed and adjusted the satchel I had fashioned into a makeshift backpack, my inkwell and pens clinking near the bottom.

Between the blizzards and the drought, we had missed so much school that we would be forced to repeat a year. Personally, I didn't really care, but for Fran the news was devastating. She was one of the children that was always eager to please; passing with the highest scores she could manage and studying with a fervor that would have left me in the dust if I didn't know the material already.

We walked into the schoolroom and took our customary seats near the rear of the classroom. A murder of crows flew from the southwest past the window. Glancing out the window, I saw a man in the distance riding up the path into the town.

Then I was standing and moving.

"Martin! Sit down!"

Ignoring Mr. Kreef, I walked through the door. The graphite-black stain of smoke smeared across the cloud-stained sky. Yes, the base was indeed coming from the Shiganshina district.

I shifted nervously.

"Martin!"

So... This was it. The beginning of the end. A hopeless snarl came to my lips as Mr. Kreef angrily grabbed my shoulder, forced me back inside, and had me stand in the corner.

I didn't resist.

The situation was hopeless; I could have gone home and told my parents to pack, flee, to save us. They would have taken one look at the smoke, reply that it wasn't what I thought it was, and punish me for making a fuss of nothing.

So I waited. So I watched.

Hours later the man had finally arrived at our town, bearing the news at the top of his lungs that the gates had fallen.

Fran and I were outside, already walking home.

Those within earshot of the cry paused in shock, trying to understand the impossibility. The gates were impenetrable - it was a fact, just like water was wet and the sun rose in the east

The cry was confirmation of my unstated fear. I should have been screaming. I should have been breaking down.

Instead, I grabbed Fran's wrist and hauled her with me to the house.

The invasion had begun.

"Moooooooom! Daaaaaaad!" I shrieked as I drew closer to the house. Some birds scattered from the trees.

No one was outside. I rushed into the house, slamming the front door open. Father was at his workbench mending a hammer, and looked up at me in curiosity.

"Get the horses!" I panted, crouched over as my chest burned from the sprint. Father got up and came towards me worriedly. I shook my head and gestured wildly at the smoke coming from the distance, "Shiganshina's gone! We need to leave, now!"

That "What's going on?"

"Shiganshina's burning!" I repeated, arms and legs trembling from adrenaline, "We need to go to the inner cities! A messenger came through the town; he said the titans got through both gates!"

Father stilled for a moment, mouth dropped in shock. But then he moved, barking orders so quickly I could barely keep up.

"Grab clothes, food - only what we need. I'll get the horses hooked up. Fran, you're coming with us."

"Y-yes sir!"

"Lisa," He turned towards me, and my gaze snapped to his, "Go get your mother. She's in the orchard."

I bolted.

Mother flew into action as soon as I stuttered out what happened, picking up my slight child's frame with superhuman strength and hauling me towards our house at a speed I wouldn't have reached on my own. She set me down, and we immediately went around gathering up the necessities.

I ran into my room and collected the spare money I had saved, my whittling tools, a couple of changes of clothes, my journal and some writing tools, and my blankets. I rushed out of the door and ran to the barn, dropping my small load into a corner of the cart. Mother followed close behind me, placing a couple days worth of food into the little shock-absorbing nest I had made.

Fran was helping keep the horses calm as father hooked them up.

Mother and father exchanged a few terse, quiet sentences. I looked around desperately, and was shocked to see our livestock roaming through open gates. I was just about to ask what was going on, but dad gathered me up in his strong arms and flung me into the carriage.

"Stay there, and don't leave!"

I nodded meekly and settled onto the cart. Father rushed towards the stables, and Fran and I somberly stared at the cloud of smoke and steam rising from the Shiganshina district. The dirt road near the edge of our farm was already bustling with activity; some groups of people clamored up the path as they rode horses and mules toward the inner city. Many more were trying to make the trip on foot, leaving everything behind except for the clothes on their back.

A small child ran up the path, crying for his older brother.

Minutes passed, and mother and father returned with a few of their most valuable items and light tools. We left without further fanfare, dodging around all of the loose animals running through the fields.

We traveled in silence for the rest of the day and through the night, only stopping to water and rest our horses for a couple of hours.

The walls of Trost were still another day away. Occasionally, a horseback rider or three overtook us at a gallop, but father kept our team of horses at a steady, energy saving trot. The cart was uncomfortable. We felt every bump, rock, and pit in the road as the wheels rolled on the uneven ground. None of us slept through the first night, but I don't think any of us could with the knell of Shiganshina hanging over our heads.

The gates of Trost appeared on the horizon just before the sun rose. A sea of humanity huddled around the entrance to the closed gate, and we stopped our cart outside of the confused crowd.

"Anton? What do we do now?" Mother whispered to father quietly.

"They were probably overwhelmed, Irma... We should wait a little more. They have to let us in. They have to."

I stayed silent. What if they didn't? What if they were only accepting the boats from the cities? What if we just missed the cutoff, and we were going to be eaten by the titans?

Fran whimpered, and mother drew her into a stiff hug. The crowd became steadily louder, wails of despair and fear echoing off of the tall walls and stirring unrest in the people around the cart.

A creak echoed from the gate, and the crowd stirred in confusion.

Then the chains groaned and lifted the bricks of the barrier into the air. A shout of elation ran through the sea of humanity, and the people flowed inside as fast as physically possible. Some people were trampled in the rush, but their howls of pain were drowned out by the hubbub and cheers. We moved with the rest of the horse-drawn carts, staying out of harm's way as well as we could. There were a few Garrison officers hanging around the edges of the crowd, I noticed belatedly. Some men and women were hanging off of the wall, anchored to their spots with their 3DMG. They flailed their swords, ineffectually attempting to direct the unruly traffic.

A number of officers were actually on the ground, but their efforts were rendered useless in the crush of people. I could barely see through a gap in the crowd as one young man took a punch to the face and went down. A few moments later he flew up the walls with his 3DMG, nursing his broken nose.

I had lost track of the time it took us to get to the gates, but we were barely passing under the immense arch of the first entrance when it happened. A scream echoed near the forest behind the crowd, and I involuntarily turned in my seat to see what was going on. My eyes skimmed the general area, ignoring the tall evergreen trees circling the clearing. A flicker of movement drew my attention upwards, and my mouth dropped open in shock. Fran saw it at the same moment I did, and screamed in terror.

A titan.

It was an ugly thing, a blue-eyed obese female that looked like it wore a skin toned bodysuit. It was probably a ten-meter class, and it pushed its way through the dense forest slowly. Ambling towards the crowd, I observed in horrified fascination as its long, unkempt blonde hair swayed over its gaping mouth. It took another step, and steam hissed from its mouth, condensing into a white fog in the cool morning air. It slowed as it neared the edges of the panicking crowd, reached toward an unfortunate straggler, lifted him into the air –

Mother blocked our view with her arms and drew us close. Fran buried her head in mother's side, muffling her fearful sobbing.

I twisted out of her grip and watched as the woman titan lifted the flailing human in her grasp. Eying the man curiously, she brought the human towards her face and bit the man's head off. I couldn't hear the wet crunch of bone over the distance, but I could see that the corpse kept twitching in its hand as the titan tilted its head back and swallowed the victim's torso. Blood and entrails spilled from the titan's hand, bathing the appendage in red fluid.

The mob screamed and surged as the people desperately pushed at and over the man, woman, or child in front of them. It was as much an act of desperation as it was an exercise in futility.

The titan finished its meal, tilted its head, swallowed, and walked towards the next group of humans.

Wails of horror, pain, and fear echoed against the walls and redoubled in intensity. Even with father's expert hand we barely cleared the second gate without being overcome by the crowd.

A second brown-haired titan came running from the trees into the middle of the crowd. It didn't stop at the edges, instead diving into the thick of the crowd, heedlessly crunching man and animal alike underfoot. Skidding on the corpses it left in its wake, it stopped, nearly overbalanced as it slipped on the entrails on the ground, reached down, and caught two people. Opening its gaping mouth, it squeezed its hand and crushed them in its fist before eating the corpses.

A third male, a blond one this time, came through the trees and lazily walked towards the crowd.

Then another with brown hair.

It was the beginning of a flood; as I watched, even more peered around the trees or staggered towards the crowd dumbly.

We slowly pushed our way through, spared from being crushed with the small protection our cart afforded us. Some people tried to climb up the sides of the cart to escape, but mother and I worked together to force them off balance and back onto the ground. Some were carried away above the crowd; others fell, stumbled, and were hidden from my sight.

Not everyone made it through.

Minutes passed, but they felt like hours in the chaos. We were stuck in the middle of the road, people and animals jostling but stuck in the same centimeter by centimeter crawl. The titans continued their rapid advance closer to the gate. More people were being eaten as more titans marched into the clearing. Some people near the edged of the crowd were cutting their losses and running into the forest, hoping against hope that the way to the east or west walls were clear.

The blonde woman titan picked up another person, a woman this time, and dropped her down its throat. The victim was still alive, and her scream reached me over the distance as her limbs flailed sporadically.

Panicked shouting came from Garrison officers hanging on the walls, and I numbly looked up. A couple of Garrison soldiers were clearing the top of Wall Rose, peering down at the chaos below. I looked again through the arch of the gate as the outer gate creaked. I blinked, and shouted in shock, pointing at the walls. They were dropping the gates. Chains creaked and gave way, slamming down with a bone rattling slam onto the people still pushing their way through.

I could still hear the crowd's screams of panic as those unlucky enough to be in the drop zone were crushed by the rapid fall of the gate. Everyone else inside of the walls rushed into the main street, adding to the chaos.

The last person made it through the second gate, and the inner gate shut. All sound was cut off from the outside, but the crowd inside was making more than enough noise to make up for the sudden silence.

It was pandemonium.

Children wailed, women cried, men shouted and sobbed. I could hear many cry for relatives and friends separated by the crush of the crowd.

Some people were silent, nearly catatonic, pushed by the crush into crevasses and cracks between the houses. Their eyes were locked into a thousand-yard-stare and they wandered aimlessly, awake but not seeing.

Fran shook silently, and mother was trembling. My fists were clenched, the knuckles becoming white as I tried, and failed, to control the vibrations running through my limbs.

I saw them die. They were crushed -

I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the people outside of the walls were deaddeaddead.

As we pushed through, the crowd eventually loosened as it dispersed into the streets of Trost. The survivors on foot rushed around our cart, but to me it looked like they were swimming through molasses. Everything had slowed down to my perception, but so many things were happening I could barely keep track of any of them. I retreated into myself, the world still flowing around me.

My head felt like it was full of cotton. I wanted to lash out, to cry, to sleep, to hurt. Who cares that we survived? Who cares that we still had each other?

I couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything.

I knew this would happen. I knew.

All of those people… The families. The children.

A shudder tore through my frame. My breath hitched, and I whimpered.

Then my stomach twisted and I was suddenly bent almost double over the side of the cart and heaving the meager contents of my stomach onto the filthy cobblestones.

Mother reached for me and roughly, desperately, pulled me into a hug.

I sobbed.

With bile in my mouth I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

Chapter 9  
I'm BACK, people! Let the next arc BEGIN!

This chapter has been betaed by the incredible White Ink Penpal.

"Lisa? C'mon, Lisa… Wake up!"

I opened my eyes slowly, staring blankly at the loose hay strewn across the floor. "Hmm?"

"We need to get to the square…"

I blinked twice, slowly, and blew out a heavy sigh. "Why?"

"There's food."

Rolling over slowly, I fought through the haze of exhaustion and glared blearily up at Fran, "I thought we brought-"

"It's gone now, Lisa," Mother interrupted me. Looking up, I saw her seated on the edge of the small stool we had found in the warehouse we were occupying. Her face was drawn tight; the stress of the past few days etching lines deep into her normally smooth, pale face.

I tried to process what was going on, but was pulled out of my haze by Fran tugging on my elbow. "We need to go. Lisaaa-"

Groaning, I pulled myself from the warm cocoon of my blanket and sleeping pad and waved her off with an, "I'm up, I'm up."

Mother was seated beside the crate that held our few remaining possessions. She put away the needle and thread she was using on one the older blankets and stood. Walking towards me, she placed a hand on my shoulder and brushed some of my tangled hair from my face.

"Get yourself cleaned up and head down to the square – you'll see where they're handing out food. The Garrison will be keeping the peace. Be careful."

"I will, Mom," I replied as I hurried to do as she said. After a quick fumble with my pack, I had the small, stiff brush out and immediately pulled it through my tangled hair. A few moments later and I was pulling all of the black strands into a low ponytail and securing it with a piece of rope.

Mother watched me as I worked with a critical eye, then sighed as I finished up. "I love you. Stay safe."

I gave her a stiff smile and left the small area my family had staked out for our own use. Fran and I edged around the people still sleeping on the floor. They were packed tighter than sardines, with narrow aisles that one could barely edge trough if they were careful. The heat of almost fifty people and their belongings crammed into a space of 2,500 square feet made the air heavy with the smell of human.

In another time, in another situation, I would have forced our family to try to find another place to stay to protect ourselves from the possibility of disease, fire… or worse. As it was, though, this relatively small barn was the only option we (and other individuals besides) had at our disposal. The wooden structure was ramshackle, the roof looked like it would leak the next time it rained, and the swinging entryway doors had immense cracks emanating from where the hinges were bolted onto its surface.

We had to leave the cart and the horses with the city-run stables outside of the city, but knowing how crazy things were I had no idea whether or not we would ever get them back.

In spite of the chaos, this city was safe. For now at least. Most of the petty criminals that had been driven here were out of their depth, and the established gangs were probably still adjusting to the new status quo; the population of the city had practically tripled overnight after all.

Add to that the intimidation factor of not two but five Garrison platoons patrolling the streets with their vaunted Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear... For now even children could somewhat safely go and retrieve food so long as they stayed in groups.

Again, I had a feeling that this situation was a sort of 'ceasefire' until everything settled down.

Besides, we didn't really have much to lose to potential thieves anyhow. We really didn't have the chance to retrieve anything of real value in our mad scramble to escape. I may have kept my small set of carving tools, but my family had lost nearly everything that we had tried to bring with us.

The jars of food were barely able to keep us fed for three days. Mother had tried to save some of the family heirlooms, but we were forced to sell them off since we had nowhere to store them. All we had to each of our names was a blanket, two sets of work clothes, and whatever coin we had managed to scrounge up before we had left.

I had no idea where our family was at financially, but I knew for a fact that my parents usually left most of their money with the town blacksmith since we didn't have a bank. Father always had some money around 'just in case,' but he hadn't expected a disaster like the Wall falling.

I did.

The relief on Father's face when I handed him my meager offering of about 200 silvers tore down any sliver of hope that we still had any money to our name.

I'll say it again: we were penniless, and that scared me more than I thought it would.

At least Fran didn't realize how worried I was yet - she had enough trouble coping with the fact that we had lost, well, everything.

And who wouldn't be feeling the same way? I was still hurting, that's for sure. Crushing depression curled around my chest whenever I looked at the tall gates of Wall Rose and remembered-

I forced myself away from that train of thought.

Dwelling on the situation wouldn't improve it. Yes, we had lost everything, yes we had barely escaped, yes, there was no going back but...

I knew who was directly responsible for this mess. I knew of the possibility of an organization behind those same people. I knew why this had happened.

From there I could plan for the next five years and (probably) survive. I had hope. I had direction.

The same couldn't be guaranteed for the rest of my family.

Fran and I left the warehouse and walked through the streets of Trost. People were already out and quietly moving towards the square, and the smell of small fires wafted through the streets.

The city of Trost was already working on a plan to provide a steady supply of food. There were rumors of people being moved from the land beside the river to make way for new fields. Most importantly, Wall Cultists were bringing food and heavy mechanical supplies to Trost by the wagonload – threshers, plows, hoes, and other assorted tools were common.

In short, the landfill project was already beginning.

This was a very good thing – it would allow the Maria refugees to earn their place here, in a sense. It would definitely help morale, at least.

Fran had been depressed, Mother had been snappish, and Father was barely able to smile these days. I still wasn't in the best frame of mind; I found myself getting lost in thought much more often than I usually did.

Any kind of job would definitely help me and my family.

We just needed to survive until the situation improved.

Fran and I came across the organized chaos of the main square just as the morning sun rose over the wall. The haze that had risen from the river overnight glowed as it was burned away by the morning sun. We carefully pushed our way through the crowd of densely packed people, making our way towards the northern wall. I exchanged a look with Fran and settled down to wait as the sound of the crowd washed around us dully.

Some time later, we heard the clatter of horseshoes on cobblestone. The crowd quieted as the noise of carts and people became louder. Then the first bread cart turned the corner and the crowd was running forward and then –

A gunshot rang through the air and a stream of colored smoke trailed up from somewhere near the rear of the supply cart. The crowd froze and stopped, and some screamed.

"Line up!" A loud voice cut over the noise, and the crowd quieted, "You all know the rules! If anyone starts anything, food WILL be withheld!" A Garrison officer had climbed to the top of the cart to make himself heard more easily.

At this declaration, people began to push and shuffle into a sketchy not-quite-single-file blob. Other officers and members of the Garrison prowled through the crowd, directing people towards the forming line and shouting into the chaos and noise.

"Get in line, get in line! We don't have all day!"

"Rations, one loaf per person!"

"Move!"

Confusion swirled through the people, but we found our way into the rapidly forming line and settled in to wait. Time passed and excited conversation eddied around us as we stood in silence, waiting as workers and volunteers scurried to assist the people handing out the food.

"...really? The refugees... eat ... too... good bread wasted on..."

I tilted my head and looked out of the corner of my eye towards a brown-haired Garrison officer with a mustache.

"…Nuisances, all of them. Humanity would do much better without…"

Fran shifted next to me. I turned away from the man and looked at her. She was so tense that a muscle twitched in her neck.

"...Fran." I hissed, and she jerked towards me, eyes wide.

"He..." she trailed off as emotions flew across her face. It was painful to see the childish anger warring with frustration and depression. I laid my hand on her shoulder.

"He's just a bully. It's not worth getting worked up over." I dismissed quietly, facing the back of the person in front of me.

Fran's mouth twisted into a frown, but she fell silent. The line moved away from the soldier, carrying us with it.

After another hour of standing around and waiting, we had been given our rations and were heading back to the warehouse. Dodging between adults, we slowed down as we left the crowd and walked towards the large building in silence.

"Are we really a that much of a burden on everyone here, Lisa?" Fran asked me as we turned off of the main street.

I shook my head. We maneuvered through the alleyways, ignoring the stream of foot traffic and the occasional Garrison officer flying overhead.

I sighed. "He had a hangover and didn't get his lunch break. He's much better off than we are - don't listen to him."

Fran nodded, but I could tell that she wasn't convinced with my explanation.

But the guards' attitude only served to highlight an issue that I knew could become a major problem in the next year. Anti-refugee sentiment had already begun spreading among the inhabitants of Trost.

It was only a matter of time until all of the food was gone and with it, any sympathy or favor that our piteous situation warranted.

A short week passed.

Things were beginning to settle down. The local government had finally gotten their act together and streamlined the aid processes, but that gave everyone more time.

This wasn't a good thing. News had spread through the town of the group of refugees that had attacked each other over an argument a couple of blocks over. One was stabbed – he didn't look like he was going to make it.

Thankfully we were in a more secure area and we could afford to wait for the local government to get things organized. I had already verified that the housing and well-building campaign would begin within the next week.

Father signed up as soon as the lines to the applicants opened. He had built our barns and had repaired much of the house we had lived in, and right now no one really cared about petty things like recommendations. He would definitely be a shoo-in for the position. It was a much better job than making bunk bed frames or sewing rough sleeping mats to use as mattresses, anyhow.

Those were just a few of the myriad of other jobs, and more were being made by the day as the need came up. Mother, Fran, and I weren't involved in any of those. Instead, we were sent to work on preparing the fields.

As it stood, there were quite a number of people higher up on the food chain that didn't know what they were doing, so my mother worked with the other farmers that had fled their homes. With the maps from the archives, after a few days they were able to work with the officials to zone the land and separate it into temporary packages. Everyone was concerned with producing food as soon as possible; further refinement of the fields would come later.

The first day we all found ourselves working on clearing the ground was bright and cold. There were two groups; some were assigned to the dryland fields for cereal grains while others (including me and Fran) were stationed near the river in the vegetable fields.

It was a thankless, exhausting, backbreaking job. Work was from before sunrise until two in the afternoon, and at the end of the day we returned to the old warehouse tired, sore, and sweaty.

Trost was the southernmost of all cities now. Its lower elevation gave it the dubious honor of having wet, 'warm', rainy winters, and was the only major city that could conduct farming year-round.

We went with the group that was assigned to go to the peas, kale, and beans field.

Ripping out the dead and dying grasses with picks and hoes, and removing the rocks that would damage the plows were common assignments for the young adults and older children.

With all of the people working at the same time, the fields only took days to prepare. Still, the work was extremely difficult and in spite of my rapidly healing biology I felt the creeping stiffness of muscle and ligament damage for weeks.

Fran didn't have any of the advantages I did and was dead tired within the first few days. As time went on I shouldered more and more of her work until her muscles recovered and she was able to carry her own weight.

Though my regeneration completely healed my skin and bones rapidly, it seemed to work differently for my muscles. Yes, I still recovered from any damage much more quickly than I should, but it was delayed enough that it seemed to allow for muscular scarring (and from there, strength). Again, I was reluctantly amazed by the brilliance of Yeager's serum.

Of course I still had my limits - my muscles only adapted to the work I was doing in the fields faster than the other people. I wasn't able to haul a plow through the ground within a week, after all.

Thankfully most of the work in for preparing the fields was done by horse and oxen teams provided by the city or volunteered by refugees. There were still other jobs to occupy our time with; sowing seeds, caring for the livestock and cleaning up after them, moving tools and equipment around, watering the fields with bucket lines, and rodent control were only a few of the many projects the people were rotated through.

Rodent duty was always a big help – not only was it a break from heavy labor, it also meant that if I found a rabbit that had been freshly killed I could keep it for my family to eat.

We also had a kind of pesticide - it looked extremely similar to the rat poison pellets we had in my past life. On closer inspection I was surprised to find that it was, in fact, Paris Green (even though it was called by a different name here). Fortunately for us it wasn't widely used in the vegetable fields with how close they were to the river. The water flowed into Hermiha and Mitras as a major resource - poisoning the river to try to save some plants was, frankly, counter-intuitive.

Despite the rapid progress the housing project had made over the past two weeks, it would be some time before my family would be assigned a place to live.

I finished up my work for the day and left the fields with the line of workers walking back to the town.

Last week I had been assigned to the fields by myself today - the shifts had changed, and Fran had been moved to water hauling duty and had left some time before me. Mother was still assisting the planning and distribution committee with the supply lines. Walking with the crowd until it hit the road to the refugee camp, I turned away from the main crowd with a large number of others and made my way back to the warehouse that we were still living in in Trost.

By the time I got there there was a crowd pushing its way into the door, so I went to grab a spare bucket hanging on the near wall. I made my way over to the line beside the outdoor pump and filled it with fresh water. That done, I carefully entered the warehouse and edged through the disarray spread across the ground.

I walked to the back of the warehouse near the rear wall and came up to see Fran lying flat on the ground, arms akimbo.

Father stopped talking to mother and looked up at my arrival, carefully adjusting the wet rag covering his sunburned neck. I looked down at the prone form of Fran with amusement, setting down the water.

"Looks like Fran's not going to get dinner tonight..." I mumbled and squatted beside the bucket.

She moaned in pain, her sunburned arm flung across her face, "Mrgh... Dinner... Not fair, Lisaaaaa..."

I rolled my eyes and tugged her leg. "Get up, you don't see me groaning on the ground."

"Screw off..." She whined as her red, tight skin pulled painfully, "You and your freakish health…"

My eyebrow quirked. "What about me?"

Lisa smacked her lips and cleared her throat, "No sunburn, and you have too much energy…"

I chuckled, stretching my free (and still very pale white) arm. "So? I'm still sore."

She groaned, trying and failing to roll over, "Liiiiisaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa… Mrghngh…"

"I have a very full bucket of water, you know."

"Don't care..." She whimpered without moving, "Would feel nice…."

Mother sighed and waved me away from her, "Fran, please wash off and eat some food. Lisa, quit bothering her."

Fran muttered something unintelligible.

After scooting towards Fran, I went to help her with a shrug. Mother went back to dividing up the small loaves of bread that we had been given.

I offered a hand with an amused mumble, "You're acting like you've never worked a day in your life."

She whined and lifted her head, her sunburned cheeks flaming. "Ni'ts so hard to keep going... 'Ts not fair you're a farmer already…"

"It helps," I agreed as she grabbed my hand and pulled herself into a sitting position with a yelp. I went on without letting her recover, "You've been throwing yourself into this work a lot more than I've been. You keep pushing yourself like this and you'll burn out."

"But I gotta get stronger…" She trailed off as she brushed bits and pieces of straw out of her loose blonde hair. A bell tolled in the distance, marking the admittance of the carts bearing the evening shipment of food.

"Why?" I asked, offering her the pail of water.

Fran shrugged, slowly soaking her hands and rubbing away the dirt and grime caked under her fingernails. Getting as much as she could get done without soap off, she moved to splashing her face.

"Because," she said childishly, and stuck out her tongue at me, "Now I need food."

I was about to reply that that made no sense, but Dad's voice became louder and I turned towards him.

"Irma, I need to get going now. The handouts'll be gone too fast…"

I could hear the crowd outside begin to get louder. "Anton..." Mother trailed off, holding a small loaf of bread in her hands. It was barely enough to keep hunger pangs blunted for a few hours.

Dad shrugged and turned away, before looking at me and ruffling my hair. I reflexively smoothed it down. "I love you kiddo. Keep everyone safe for me. I'll be right back."

Mother placed her hand on father's shoulder, but he shook his head and left without a word.

I watched this happen, but went to help myself to the food that we had held from this morning. The bread was hard, but I chewed and swallowed it with barely a wince.

Mother had pulled out Father's ripped shirt some time ago and was mending it speedily. Her small needle flashed rapidly as it wove in and out of the fabric. I shook my head to snap myself out of the daze I was in and went to catch a nap before father brought more food home.

It would be another busy day tomorrow, and I needed all the rest I could get.

"...What's this?"

I blinked slowly as I was dragged from the drowsy day-sleep I usually let myself fall into on the one day we all had off. Mother had just handed Father a piece of paper with a satisfied expression on her face. Fran looked up from where she was sitting on her sleeping palette. A thin ray of morning sunlight had wormed its way through an opening in the ceiling, and father was using it to read what was on the paper.

I stretched and yawned, feeling my muscles contract, and flipped from my back to my stomach to get a better view of what was happening.

Father finished reading the paper, and a slow smile spread across his face. Suddenly, he hugged mother and lifted her, spinning her around and setting her down with a deep laugh.

"This is perfect! And they're letting us in today?"

Mother said something quietly in the affirmative, and father dropped his whittling tools into a small chest we shared.

"Lisa, Fran! Wake up!"

Fran jerked, inhaled, and gave a little groan. I stretched and sat up slowly, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.

"Mom? Dad? What's going on?"

Dad's grin looked like it would split his face when he turned back to me, "We're going to get a real bed and a roof over our heads."

...Sounded good to me.

The first couple of refugee houses were singularly spartan in appearance.

A small crowd had gathered outside of the new buildings, milling near a table where a man with a book of names sat.

Father slipped away from us and walked through the crowd easily. Striding up to the man, he said something I couldn't hear over the distance once the other looked up at his approach. With an air of satisfaction, my father brought the piece of paper he had been reading out and showed it to the man. Words were exchanged, and then father was making his way through the crowd and pointing towards one of the houses.

"There's an open one two streets down. Let's go!"

The new building smelled of fresh wood and metal. I peered down the long hallway that continued in an uninterrupted line from the door. Open holes set into long wall on this side of the building looked over the covered porch and let light and air in. The heads of the bunk beds were pushed against the wall, barely leaving enough space in the hallway for two full grown men to pass by each other shoulder-to-shoulder.

Fran didn't seem to care about the somewhat cramped conditions. After we walked down the line of numbered bunks and found the ones that had been assigned to us, she flung herself onto one of the lower beds. I sighed and threw my two blankets up onto the thin straw pad serving as a mattress.

I eyed the long row of bunks laid across the floor behind me. In spite of the cramped living space at least there would be less people here.

There weren't any oil lamps installed - any nighttime light would have to be personally provided. I went to help father unpack the few belongings that we had; mostly I was pulling bedcovers over the thin, scratchy, and hard mattresses.

Looking back, I think the most amusing thing about the whole situation was that the realization that I finally had a bed and decent roof over my head again didn't hit me until I had finally settled down to sleep.

We were finally moving forward again in our lives; the fields had been sown, we had a job and a place to live for the next year at least, and we were finally getting our lives back on track. Sure, we would have to pay money for the space we were living in, but that and food costs would be automatically deducted from our monthly pay.

Things were improving, and for the first time in over a week I was able to sleep somewhat comfortably in a bed I could call my own.

End

Did you know...?

Paris Green is a nasty inorganic compound comprised of oxygen, hydrogen, copper and arsenic. You really don't want to ingest this stuff - it was once used in rat poison and insecticides (and had a secondary effect as an herbicide). This poison was also once used as a pigment for wallpapers in both New England and the United Kingdom, where the compound would break down into arsene gas during the wet, foggy winter months and slowly poison the inhabitants of the house.

Ick.

Yes, I have returned! No excuses - to be honest, I needed a break from writing this story. I should be updating regularly from here on out for the forseeable future.

Anyhow, thank you all for your patience. If you liked the chapter, please drop a review, if not, then tell me how I can do better!

Until next time!

Chapter 10  
Listening to the Darker than BLACK original sound track for seasons one and two. Both are so dang awesome~!

Also: Wow. Just, wow. I'm so overwhelmed right now - 100 reviews, 200 follows, and 11,000 views?

*taps microphone* Hey, is this thing on? *feedback squeal*

Ahem - *shuffles papers* I'd like to thank my mom, and my dog - Ack!

*Crowd of irritated readers chase Ace off of the soapbox with dull sporks, cellphones, and flashlights*

"SHUT UP! WE WANT OUR CHAPTER!"

Ack! *high squeal of TERROR* No, nonono, PLEASE! Not the face, NO NOT THE FACE!

This chapter has been betead by the pleasant White Ink Penpal!

Winter had arrived.

I was worried.

I don't mean to say that there wasn't cause to celebrate. After about three months there had been a very visible progress with the crops. The winter barley had sprouted and was growing with a vengeance, and the peas and kale were thriving as well as they could in the painfully new fields.

No, I wasn't worried about my livelihood and job being in danger. The problem was about the news that had reached us this morning.

Mitras had begun the first phase of the Retake Wall Maria Plan.

It wasn't said in so many words, but a census had been announced. All were required to submit their name, gender, age, current address, trade, and say whether they were 'healthy' or not. Even the children weren't skipped over.

The new census campaign wasn't the only issue - there was now a very noted difference in how the refugees were being treated by the inhabitants of Trost.

It could easily be traced back to how much food was being consumed by the refugees on a daily basis - the landfill farms hadn't technically given anything back or relieved the food shortage, after all. That, and the wealthier residents of Trost were growing uncomfortable with all of the changes to the local economy.

Not just yesterday I had seen a young banker, three sheets to the wind, yelling loudly to his buddies that all refugees were "the leeches sucking the hard-earned resources of humanity."

A direct quote.

The anti-refugee attitude wasn't really a popular opinion to have a few months ago, but as time went on I could see that more people were growing less and less tolerant of our presence. Yes people were worried about the state of the supplies, but the speed at which the atmosphere changed from "supportive-acceptance" to "distrustful-and-slightly-hostile" was almost alarming.

Still, despite the rapid shift in popular opinion there wasn't anything I could do about it. All I could do now was be sure that I was never alone and didn't give anyone an excuse to start trouble.

News of the census had come with a trading caravan that was moving goods through the southern settlements.

Still, Mother and Father didn't voice any concerns over it, or of the steadily worsening attitude toward the refugees. Instead, they planned to replace some of the wares we had lost to the fall of Maria when my family's day off rolled around.

The day dawned bright and early, and we as a family left the refugee town speedily under heavy clothing.

People bustled across the stone walkways underneath the arches spanning from building to building. The cobblestone streets rang with the dull clopping of feet and horseshoes, and the hubbub of the people flowing through the streets echoed off of the walls. Housewives haggled with merchants for food, clothes, baubles, and other products.

I drew closer to the comforting presence of my father as we all walked towards a cloth trader. Mother stepped up to inspect the displays with an experienced eye, and snapped a practiced series of rapid-fire questions at the vendor. The merchant responded in kind, and both fell into a heated discussion complete with arm gestures. Father, Fran, and I looked at each other, Father shrugged, and quietly moved all of us to the next cart while keeping mother within earshot.

While father and Fran browsed the wares, I inspected what the opperware cart had to offer with interest.

Shallow and deep pans hung from the display and colorful paper streamers hung from a tall flagpole and waved in the breeze. As I browsed, I looked out of the corner of my eye at the attending trader. He was an unfriendly looking man, with a stiff beard that must have taken him years to grow. He affixed me with a beady eye and blinked slowly, deliberately.

I felt my nose scrunch as I scowled, and looked up to stare at him openly. He grinned crookedly, revealing yellowed teeth. I backed away and bumped into my father's leg. After making a questioning noise, he looked up and saw the merchant openly leering at me.

Father frowned, disgusted, and called Fran back before turning on his heel and pointedly walking away.

Fran had completely missed the exchange I had just had and was understandably confused, "Mister Anton? What's wrong? Why are we leaving?"

Father turned and gave her a quick pat on the shoulder, responding with a quiet, "I'll tell you later."

I shivered, nausea worming through my gut, and pulled Fan along by the hem of her shirtsleeve. We pushed our way back to the fabrics cart just as mother turned away with her purchases. Father jerked his head stiffly towards the other side of the street and she nodded in understanding.

We left with little fanfare.

I wish I could say that the rest of the trip passed without incident, but as we walked home we once again were reminded, harshly, that the city wasn't as safe as it once was.

We had made our way through the crowded streets of the square, inspecting each cart in turn, until mother had finally announced that we had bought everything that we had needed. By this time, Fran had begun to lag behind the little family group.

Father stopped us and called her back to us. I turned and was about to urge her closer, but hesitated as I saw her looking down an alleyway.

"Fran? Come on."

"Ah?" She blinked at me in confusion, then turned back to stare at what she had been looking at.

Curious, I stepped away from my family and walked closer. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"There's a man asleep in the alleyway…" Fran trailed off, pointing.

Worried, I walked over to her and grabbed her arm while glancing down the shaded nook between two buildings. I looked to where she was pointing before, and I felt my heart skip a beat.

There was a man lying unnaturally still on the cold cobblestones. The only skin I could see was a pale hand with the characteristic lines and discolorations of age lying limply against the ground. His face was covered by an old piece of newspaper, and there was a small river of a dark liquid under his armpit, and a suspicious puddle underneath his pelvis.

"Probably just a drunk." I scoffed, hurriedly pulling her away from what was undeniably a cooling corpse. "I think we need to get back to the bunks. Now."

"Already?" She asked, following me back to where mom and dad waited.

I looked at the remains and frowned. "Yeah. Let's go."

Fran shrugged, we as a family hurried back to the refugee buildings.

Later that day, the rumor mill said the murdered man was a refugee from Shiganshina. Apparently he had gotten into a fight with a group of Trost residents over… something. Probably food, but the people I talked to swore that it was anything from a stolen gold coin to a ladyfriend.

Father had saved several kitchen knives from my old home, and after a hushed conversation with Mother he handed one to each of us to keep on our person. I made myself and Fran holsters out of fabric scraps mother had gathered, and strapped mine to my side under my thin coat.

I forced Fran to swear that she wouldn't go looking for trouble. She rolled her eyes and agreed easily before turning back to… whatever she was doing.

She was reading one of my old thin books, one that I had salvaged before we had fled the farm. There was a folded piece of paper stuck inside it as a bookmark.

Lifting my hanging head from the edge of the upper bunk bed, I rolled over and let my head fall against my pillow with a wince at the old and painful memories the book cover brought up. Unbidden, thoughts of home, and warmth, and safety welled up, before I blinked them away with a frown.

Yes we had escaped, but…

Sighing, I scooted towards the side of the bunk and slowly let myself down. Calling towards my parents, I let them know that I was heading to the water pump before letting myself out of the bunkhouse.

I couldn't let myself dwell on those thoughts. It was in the past, and only time would heal the pain now.

Time passed slowly. Days passed and grew ever shorter as winter dragged nearer, but the organizers refused to give up this season's crop up as a bad job. Work was mostly focused on keeping the crop stable. The only thing that we really needed was to keep the crop covered in case of a frost, but we had thankfully gotten a really heavy rainfall that blessed us with cloud cover for a month.

The crops were, in effect, saved. And with more rain on the way, it seemed that we were on our way to actually making an improvement in the food shortage department.

I woke to the sound of Father getting out of his bed and pulling on his shoes. Turning, I was him stand and walk to the nearest door. Hurriedly, I rolled out of bed, threw on some clothes, and ran after him.

A few people were already awake and walking around. The sky had begun to lighten, and a morning breeze had kicked up. Father was already halfway down the street by the time I was able to catch up to him.

"Dad! Wait up!"

Father turned around in surprise and peered down at me. "Lisa? What are you doing up so early?"

I shrugged, finally coming up beside him, and looked down, "Wondering where you're going."

Father moved, and I heard his clothes rustle. "I have to go see how the horses are doing. They should still be in the stables… Apparently this 'Heigel' guy heads one of the more honest establishments around here."

"Oh."

"Yes. He's asked me to move the horses down to another one of the buildings he owns. Apparently the stables my horses are in are needed for the landfill farms…" He trailed off.

A beat of silence. "So the price changed for boarding the horses. I'm guessing forty copper?" I asked.

Father sighed heavily, "Almost. I was able to negotiate thirty-two."

I hummed and shrugged.

Father cleared his throat, causing me to look up at him. "I'll be leaving, then. Do you and your mother have everything handled here?"

I glanced over the quiet street. "I think so."

Father nodded, drawing a hand over his sleepy eyes, "That's good. I'll be seeing you both afterwards."

As Father turned to go, another thought occurred to me, "Will you be selling the horses if it gets too expensive to keep them? I know we already got rid of the tack and the cart…"

He turned towards me with a shake of his head, "Those horses are direct descendants of the ones my great-great grandfather owned, and were a gift to me from my own father once I came of age. I wanted to pass them down to you, but…" he trailed off, gesturing to the refugee compound.

I relaxed, giving him a hug, "I understand. See you, Dad."

"Stay safe, kiddo."

So it turned out that 'old man Heigel' was actually the best and most secure deal we could hope for. The horses remained safely under his and his stable hands watchful eyes, but we were forced to sell our cart a few days ago when it became too much trouble to keep it around.

We had been working in the fields for two months by now. The weekend had once again rolled around. I was on my bunk, fiddling with a block of wood. I had no particular goal in mind, simply planning out the best way to make a perfect sphere.

"Lisa? Lisa?"

I looked up as Fran crashed through one of the doors, blinking in surprise.

"Yeah, Fran?" I answered, setting down the little piece of wood.

"Heads up!"

Something made of cloth flew at my face. After dropping the whittling tool with a clatter, I raised my hand and it smacked into my palm with a slap.

"Ow! What's that for?" I groused as I shook out my stinging hand.

Fran bounced over excitedly, "Open it, open it!"

I sighed and did as she asked. As the cloth fell away I gasped in shock. "Is this… Curing oil?" I looked up at her worriedly, "Where'd you find this?"

Fran held a distinctly smug air over her as she replied, "You'll never guess."

"Who?" I asked, irritated.

"Rimes!" She answered, throwing her arms wide.

Shocked, I bolted up from my seat. "He's here?"

Fran shook her head, "Nah, he had to leave yesterday. He told me to give this to you."

I looked at the small package in my hands. "I… did you pay him?"

Fran shrugged, "No, he just handed it to me."

Glancing toward her out of the corner of my eye I asked, "Did he give you anything?"

Fran nodded vigorously, digging around in her pockets. Something crinkled, and she pulled out a few wrapped objects, "Yeah, some candy and a deck of cards!"

"Cards?" I repeated, curious.

"Uh-huh! Look!"

Sure enough, she pulled out a deck of double-headed cards. New, too, by the looks of it.

"That's… uncharacteristically generous of him. Did you tell him thank you?"

Fran snorted, "Of course! He said you'd know how to play the games."

I blinked. Then I groaned aloud, remembering the time I had accidentally-on-purpose scalped him and three of his friends during Pinochle.

"That was a one-time thing… And he got all of the money back the next day."

Say what you would about Rimes, he knew how to peddle his wares.

"So?" Fran asked, flipping the card deck in her hand a few times.

…I really didn't want to teach her to gamble – her eager face made me shudder to think what trouble she would get into.

"Alright," I acquiesced, pulling out a small wooden box with a flat surface to play on, "We need more than a single deck to play Pinochle -" and I'm NOT going to teach you poker, "- so let me show you a little game called Speed…"

The sky was wonderfully overcast today. Hoes and shovels scraped against the ground, turning the land and aerating it for the next round of crops.

The harvest had gone extraordinarily well and went a long way towards alleviating some worry in the cities. We were able to support Trost and export enough food to reach the nearby villages and the northern Utopia district.

The problem was that it just wasn't enough.

It was no secret that the surplus the city had enjoyed was now gone – all of the stores had been completely eaten by the refugees by now. This last harvest, though bountiful, had barely broke even in terms of food sales and replacement.

Aside from the short-term issue of not having enough food to go around, we were faced with a more serious long-term problem. Mother and father had brought it to my attention when I overheard a hushed conversation inside of the barracks that had been constructed for the refugees.

The soil quality was starting to degrade at an alarming rate. The people in charge of the landfill farming weren't stupid; they had to know that this rate of productivity would severely impact the quality of the soil within five years. According to my notes on the manga and anime, the current distribution of resources inside the walls could only sustain around eighty percent of the full population for an extended period of time.

The Utopia district and the villages surrounding it was far enough north that they couldn't produce crops through the winter. Trost was the only major food producer within the walls this winter season, and it showed as news of more and more people starving to death reached us from beyond the Trost city limits.

There weren't any rumors of a 'Retake Wall Maria' project yet, but with what looked like a hard winter and the census only recently being completed I knew it was only a matter of time by this point.

I looked away from my work in the fields for a moment as another group of Wall Cultists walked down the roads. They were bearing cartloads of supplies and food from the recent harvest towards Mitras. Surrounding the caravan was a contingent of Military Police on horseback.

Wallism was not just a government sanctioned religion; it was the government sanctioned religion. A mix of Buddhist beliefs and modern deism, Wallism glorified the three walls by objectifying them as a kind of Tulpa, or "thought form," that was empowered by the faithful through their continued prayers and meditations.

I went back to weeding the fields, turning away from the group of women and men wearing habits and prayer beads.

In regards to the Wallist congregation itself, they generally played to the tune of "do no harm and no harm shall be done against you." A common belief shared by the myriad of congregations was that the Walls would bless the faithful if they followed the commands of the Elders. The Elders gained their authority through the "sacred books" of the Annals of Time.

I personally held the suspicion that the "Annals of Time" were a series of history tomes about the years before the walls were built. I couldn't say for sure, however – its secrets were almost as jealously guarded as the Bible itself during Medieval Europe.

Wallists also served humanity as a kind of aid group; the closest thing I could compare them to was a kind of Red Cross. They were always part of the first and last responders whenever the king called for his citizens to help those affected by plagues by sending volunteers, funding, medical supplies, and food.

It was known and generally accepted that Wallism was an extension of the king's will – sort of a "peoples'-ministry" if you will. Unsurprisingly, Wallism was also one of the more notable powers inside current politics, generally calling for more funds to be shunted into humanitarian efforts.

If a civilian wished to become a Wallist, he or she would have to leave behind everything they once knew and travel to the central convent inside Mitras. There were stories, of course. Rumors of secretive initiations and dangerous challenges to test the lengths one would go to preserve the Wall's mysteries.

While those rumors may have had some founding in reality, I highly doubted that most of it was true.

The day neared noontime, and the bell tolled. The people in the fields finished up whatever project they were working on and filed into the food hall for water and some bread. Fran plodded tiredly beside me, and I gently bumped her shoulder with mine. She met my eyes with a weary smile and filed into the food line as we entered the building.

"Next in line!" The desk attendant called.

The work day had finally ended. Crowds of people were milling about on the dirt roads outside of the bunkhouses, and most were filed into a long line that snaked its way back and forth around the tool storage sheds. Today was payday, and everyone was in a somewhat better mood than usual.

I stepped forward.

"Name and number?" The man drawled. He was an old man, with along beard and a low-brimmed hat.

"Lisa Martin, 8034. I'm also collecting for Anton Martin, Irma Martin, and Fran Martin. Worker numbers 8032, 8033, and 8035."

He flipped through his accounting book and swiftly found the numbers. "Time sheets, please." I handed the small cards over without protest. The man scanned it with the assistance of a cracked fingertip, before looking up at me. "You took these to your supervisor?"

I didn't flinch as the man pulled up his hat to reveal a watery, cataract ridden eye.

"Signature's on the card. She says hi, by the way."

He checked off a few boxes on the piece of paper and handed me four vouchers. "Please see one of the secretaries for payment. Next in line!"

I moved, but wasn't out of the way fast enough. The man behind me rammed into my shoulder, and I stumbled backwards. Arms flailing, I accidentally fell towards a boy around my age and height. Desperately, I grabbed onto his ratty coat before I could fall onto the roadapples scattered over the ground.

"Hey, wh-wha?!" He stuttered as I nearly sent us both tumbling. I coughed and moved my feet under me before letting him go. I brushed myself off hurriedly as we each regained out balance.

"Sorry. Didn't see you there."

"Ah. It's fine." He waved me off, embarrassment coloring his face, "I wasn't paying attention to where..."

I shrugged.

The blond boy smiled sheepishly and muttered, "I was just heading down to the twenty-fifth building, don't let me bother you."

"Oh... I was heading to the mess hall," I replied as I began to walk.

"Guess we're heading the same way, then."

"Seems so," I answered as he caught up to me. We quietly strolled side-by side through the straight streets of the refugee town, dodging the crowds. I looked to my left and gestured towards an out of the way alleyway before walking down the shortcut. With a little bit of hesitation, he followed.

The silence, while not uncomfortable, was somewhat irritating to me. I cleared my throat, and the boy looked towards me, "So what brings you to this side of Wall Rose?"

A muscle jumped in his neck as he replied, "I came in on one of the boats."

I whistled and gave an apologetic wince, "Damn, that bites."

"Yeah."

Nothing more really needed to be said about that. Everyone and their mother had heard what had happened after all. We walked in silence for some time, passing by the communal well before I broke the silence by clearing my throat.

"You have any family around?"

He nodded and cleared his throat. "Yeah, my grandpa. He's a dryland field worker."

"I see. Trapping?"

"And seeding," he elaborated, "And fixing the tools. And poisoning."

Oh, so he was healthy enough to serve as one of the more versatile workers out there. "Jack-of-all-trades?" I asked.

He gave an uneasy smile before retorting, "Aren't we all?"

We shared a laugh at that and fell into a more comfortable silence just before we walked up to the looming open doors of the mess hall.

I stopped and turned around, not really with a smile, but extended a hand.

"It was nice meeting you."

He shook my hand with a much more natural smile and said, "You as well. Thanks for the help back there..."

I shrugged, "Anytime. I'm Lisa. What's your name?"

"Ah, it's Armin."

I almost, almost hesitated for a moment but shook his hand one last time before releasing it.

"Well good luck then, Armin."

He waved goodbye and I walked into the mess hall without further fanfare.

As I lined up to receive my rationed dinner, I noticed that my hands were shaking. I took a deep breath to force down the unease the encounter had left me with, and after receiving my plate I trotted over to one of the long bench tables to scarf down my food.

Armin.

I really hoped it wasn't the same Armin Arlert... But he said he was from Shiganshina. And he was blond.

Crap.

I really was hoping to stay away from anyone else connected to the storyline, but knowing how crowded this ramshackle town was I'd probably run into him or one of his friends in the fields.

That would mean that I'd have to interact with Yeager's son. I felt a shiver roll down my spine and mentally shook myself.

Eren wasn't his father.

But I couldn't ignore the fact that Eren was - would be - extremely dangerous to associate with.

Titan shifting would be getting far, far too close to the truth of where titans come from for anyone in power to be comfortable with. I'm surprised that Erwin Smith had enough clout to get Eren out of the courtroom and into the Survey Corps.

Blinking, I came back to reality. With a sigh, I pushed my cheap, tough bowl to the side and picked up the napkin I had unconsciously shredded.

I really needed to review my notes and find a way to minimize any contact with Armin and the others.

All said, three months from the fall of Wall Maria had passed, and we were now in the dead of winter. Fieldwork had been passed around, and my family and I had been reassigned to growing peas and potatoes.

I had a few more less-notable encounters with Armin (thankfully all on good terms), but we generally kept to our own groups. There wasn't any time to talk in the fields right now anyways; the harvest had just ended, and at least half of the workforce was being told to break new, untouched ground while the rest started the next crops.

With the success of the previous harvest behind our backs, more workers were shipped from the northern, eastern, and western walls to assist with the fields. The local attitude toward the refugees had lightened immensely; we had something to offer our unwilling hosts and were doing our part to keep humanity alive.

Despite the hefty expectations of our overseers and the heavy knell of the food shortage hanging over our heads, spirits were in good cheer. Housing was fast becoming a necessity as more and more people arrived – Father built houses more than he farmed now. It was a good thing for us too; housing paid better wages than farming.

There had been talk of a surplus of production with the wheat farm. Father even came home last night with fresh bread to eat with the communal stew that was prepared for the workers – a rare commodity these days.

Fran was nowhere to be found when father met me and mother on the road towards the communal food hall everyone congregated at. I left them to look for Fran, and promised to meet them in the food hall if they managed to secure a table.

I tromped to the front door, my heavy work boots shedding dirt as the mud caked on the soles and sides dried and sloughed off. The door was already cracked open, the heat and sound of the crowded interior spilling through the opening.

I took my work coat off, wrinkling my nose at the pungent smell of sweat and unwashed bodies that perpetually pervaded the air in the bunkhouse. I picked my way through the crowded building towards the where my family stayed, avoiding the other people that pushed and shoved their way through the crowded aisle between beds.

"Fran? Where are you?" I shouted over the hubbub.

No answer was forthcoming, so I rolled my eyes and continued my valiant trek through the obstacle course. In the distance, I heard the dinner bells toll. The atmosphere of the building changed, as the people around me began to push and shove their way out the door. The loud babble of conversation and laughter echoed against the low ceiling.

"Fraaaaaaan? Come on, they're serving dinner!" I called as I walked towards out bunks.

She wasn't there. Worried, I gave a quick inspection of the area around Fran's bed; her shoes were gone, so she wasn't in the latrine… I turned to move, but a gust of air caused a yellowed piece of paper shoved underneath her pillow to move in the breeze.

Recognizing it as the paper she was using as a bookmark, I dug it out from the pillow and was about to move it to a more secure location when curiosity struck me. It was folded, so I carefully opened the small square of paper and read the black ink with a frown.

For humanity's FUTURE and your HONOR!

For your DUTY to your KING!

It was a recruitment poster.

No. She couldn't…

I stuffed the paper in my overcoat and ran out the door.

Did you know...?

Winter crops include peas, kale (and other dark leafy veggies), and root vegetables like potatoes and radishes. Late fall grasses usually include winter rye, wheat, and barley, but there's really not that much variety for growing cold temperature cereal grains during the dead of winter.

Chapter 11  
Geesh. What a chapter. Let the plot thicken!

This chapter has been betaed by the poignant White Ink Penpal!

The air was musty and cool, and a breeze blew erratically around the refugee bunkhouses. A group had gathered in one of the squares near the gates to Trost, and I ran through the crowds, using my slight child's stature to my advantage as I ducked and weaved around bodies and limbs.

Why would she still be interested in this? I wondered as I heard paper crinkle in my pocket. I thought she understood what could happen in she joined the military.

After turning the corner I was about to run past the line to the water pump, but stopped once I found Fran stuck in it.

She was... carrying a bucket.

Mom had asked her to get some water and bring it back to the bunkhouse earlier... Clearing my throat, I called to her over the crowd of people standing around in the area.

I could see her startle a little, before she found me and answered with a wave.

"We're waiting for you at dinner!" I shouted, and she nodded before turning back to the moving line. I turned and walked, and after reaching a nearby shed where I could still see Fran, I settled against the wall and let my thoughts swirl through my mind.

Long waits and immense lines were routine by now; with all of the people that had been funneled into the program it had been inevitable. I looked over the somewhat sizable crowd as some people stood out out the way of the foot traffic in small groups and talked. Others, usually carrying buckets, stood in a long line that stretched a good fifty feet off down the street, while many more people bustled down the dusty road that connected all of the refugee bunkhouses to the fields and facilities.

A bunch of people stirred as I heard the second dinner bell's clang over the dull roar of conversation.

As I waited for Fran, the small, yellowed recruitment poster flew across my mind's eye. My breath hitched slightly, and I forced myself to relax.

Should I even try to stop her?

I… didn't really know if it would keep her here or push her into joining at this point.

Fran always wanted to join the Survey Corps. It was as much of a fact to her as water was wet. She adored them, idolized them, and made it no secret that being a member of the Survey Corps would be her dream job. In spite of my discouragement, she only grew more enchanted with them as time wore on, even going as far as to keep a small notebook of dates and progress made with each expedition.

Thought I wouldn't be happy with it, in any normal situation I would be at least somewhat more resigned to the inevitability. Fran wanted to join the military; it was simple fact.

The problem was that I knew what was going to happen; when Trost fell, the trainees would be thrust onto the front lines. I had no intention of risking my life for a doomed operation, and if Fran left she more than likely would be one of the many faceless victims of the titans.

I couldn't let that happen.

Still, this was a huge decision and I was shocked she hadn't made any mention of it to me just yet. She shared everything with me; her hopes, dreams, fears… So why did she keep this under wraps?

I began to feel some frustrated anger, but stomped on it.

No. There had to be a reason. Something…

Fran finally made it through the line a few minutes later, hauling the bucket with her thin, ropy arms. As we made our way back to the bunks, I found myself trying to bring up the subject, but I couldn't seem to get the words out.

Instead, we both made it to dinner without me saying anything. Mother and father both welcomed us to the table, and we sat down to eat. Later that night, I made sure to replace the recruitment poster before she realized it was missing.

All in all, half of the week went by before I decided to confront her. Work and life went on as usual, but I found myself waiting to see whether or not Fran would bring up the military and/or the Training Corps.

She didn't.

It was then I came to the slow realization that Fran had not once made mention of her "dream job" in the past three months.

It had been about that same amount of time since Wall Maria had fallen.

The realization was worrying. Fran always clammed up when she was planning something.

Sighing, I received yet another bucket from the human chain and passed it along the line. Turn back, pull and give to the next. Rinse, repeat.

Watering the vegetable fields was boring work. In spite of how tiring the job usually was, it wasn't very focus-intensive and always gave me time to think. Too much time, sometimes.

Like now.

I felt… I don't know what I felt. Everything was a jumble. Did I feel betrayed? Somewhat, but I was more upset with myself that I couldn't see the warning signs.

I really needed to talk to Fran.

Hours passed, the day ended, and I left the fields with a heavy heart.

There were only a few people in the bunkhouse when I arrived that. Fran had come back before me and was sitting on the edge of her bed. I felt the first stirrings of nervousness, but ruthlessly squashed it.

"Fran…"

She looked up, hurriedly closing her book. With a sigh, I ignored her protests and took the book. Opening it, I pulled the recruitment poster out. Her eyes widened, and I leaned against a post on my parent's bunk.

"Why?" Explain yourself.

Fran stuttered, reaching for the piece of paper in my hand, "No! Give that back! It's not - "

"It's not what, Fran? Not what it looks like?" I snapped, holding the book and the paper out of her reach.

"No!" she growled, trying to push her way to the scrap of paper I held. "An officer gave me that flyer!"

"And you kept it? I thought you were going to think of another job!"

"I am!" she protested. "Farming, remember? Anton said he would teach me!"

"Then why are you throwing it away?"

"I'm not! I'm… Just…" She looked around wildly, making a few aborted movements with her hands.

"Just what," I snapped, tired of her stalling.

"I'm - I'm useless here! I could be out there, helping to fight against the titans!"

"Fighting the titans is a death sentence!"

"So?" she retorted. "At least I'll be helping! I can't just stand here and do nothing! I want everyone to be safe!"

"It's not your problem!"

"Yes, it is! The titans are everyone's problem!" She turned away from me, and I could hear her voice shake as she muttered, "Why do you hate the Survey Corps, anyways?" She turned back around, and I could see tears in her eyes. "They never did anything to you!"

"You're right, they didn't," I agreed. "But why are you so devoted to them?"

"I-"

"Don't you see what the propaganda is doing to you?" I cut her off.

"Stop-"

"No, I'm not stopping!" I growled. "You need to hear this!"

"And I know all of this already!"

"Then why are you thinking of throwing your life away?!"

She gaped for a moment but angrily replied, "It's not 'throwing it away' if I'm helping others!"

I rolled my fingers against my arm for a moment before replying, "What are the survival statistics for first-time expeditions?"

Fran glared at me mulishly. "…It was sixty percent casualties, injured and dead combined, before the long distance enemy detection system lowered it to thirty."

"That's still an almost two in five chance you won't survive your first mission."

She threw her arms up in the air in frustration. "I'll just become more skilled then!"

"And when the titan is breathing down your neck?" I asked, pushing away from the post and starting to pace. "When it grabs you out of the air because of the damned arms waving around? You'll be swatted like a fly, but worse! You'll be a fly with fish line trailing behind you!"

"If I do nothing, then they win! I have to join!" Her voice lowered and she whispered, "It's my duty."

I stopped and turned to face her fully. "To whom? The king? He couldn't care less about you," I hissed. "All he does is sit on his fat ass and delegate!"

Fran's eyes widened, before her eyes darted around as she shushed me, "Lisa."

"Oh, come on. Everyone knows that's what it's really like in the capital."

"But you don't say things like that-!" She whispered, "What's wrong with you?!"

"You're getting ready to throw her life away."

She shook her head, "No. Nonono. You – don't you dare-!"

"I'm giving you facts!"

"Facts aren't everything!" she yelled, and I could see the walls come up. "What if I want to join the military!? What if I feel like I owe humanity something? I don't want to be useless!"

I shook my head, "You're not useless, and you don't owe them anything!"

"You've heard as much as I have," she began. "The food shortage isn't getting any better! It's worse! If I can help with the titans, maybe help retake the walls-"

"There isn't any way to retake the walls." I cut her off, resolutely ignoring the little voice at the back of my mind that screamed liar.

Fran stopped moving for a moment, then replied, "If I enlist, then your dad doesn't have to worry about feeding me. Humanity doesn't have to worry about feeding me. I can give back to the people!"

I let out a sharp, explosive sigh. "…There's no convincing you, is there?"

She laughed, sharply, "No. I know my duty. I will enlist in the military… to save humanity."

And there it was. I stopped moving, looking long and hard at her unwavering face.

She really wasn't going to change her mind about this.

I walked away from the bunks.

"Lisa…"

Stopping, I turned around. I looked at Fran's determined face with resignation.

I sighed and replied, "I'll see you at dinner."

"Lisa."

I closed the door behind me and started walking.

We didn't talk to each other for a week.

The self-imposed exile was noticed by my parents, and they did try to encourage both of us to get over our differences. I wanted to reconcile, I really did. This was hurting her as much, if not more, than it was hurting me.

I tried to talk to her, but she pushed me away with tears in her eyes. I guess it was too soon, but it wasn't like I was about to go and tell her that she should join the military. I tried to find a solution to our differences, but my plotting had been cut short as the one thing I was hoping - praying, wouldn't come to pass reared its ugly head.

The Retake Wall Maria Plan had been announced.

"The King has declared that humanity shall endeavor to retake our resources from the grip of the titans!"

The herald, dressed in the high quality clothesof the upper class and bearing the royal standard, had more than easily drawn a crowd around himself in the central square of Trost. I stood inside the sea of people, trying not to get knocked off of my perch as the people jostled against each other and the wall. The only reason I could even see the man in the first place was because I had grabbed a small elevated space on the edge of a wall.

Speaking of which, he had just cleared his throat and was about to continue.

The mutters that had sprung up from his last proclamation as his loud voice scythed through them, "Workers will be drafted from the population to plug the gap in the holy Wall Maria! All must submit their name within sixty days!"

More mutters, but they died down as he raised his hands, "Protection for these brave workers will be provided by the best from our very own Garrison and Military Police!"

Here, he turned around and raised an arm high over his head and balled it into a fist.

"Maria refugees! You all have had your lands stolen from you by titans; but now is the time to act! This is your opportunity to fight back for humanity! This is your chance to secure your home for future generations! As I speak, the King's military is cutting through the titan invaders just outside these walls!"

I felt my eyebrow quirk in disbelief; I hadn't heard of this happening. It probably was a lie; it would be extremely expensive to equip and replace all of the soldiers and their equipment when they suffered inevitable casualties.

"Their mission will take nine months, but the King calls for action now! The posters are sealed missives from the king; they will tell you where to go to sign up for this historical mission! Our kind Lords and Ladies that have traveled here on your behalf will be overseeing the signatures of the volunteers! May the Walls always cover us in the protection of their shadow!"

The trumpets blasted, and the man stepped down.

I had been left with a lot to think about at the end of the day.

Right now I was inside of the muggy and cold bunkhouse. The roofs had been waterlogged with the most recent winter storm, but the miserable conditions wasn't was the farmers were buzzing about. No, they were far, far more concerned with the threat of frost hanging like a death knell over the tender shoots in the fields.

Even I could see that this season was not going to be a kind one. The plants would need constant babysitting, and we would be lucky to even get one tenth of what we had planted. The grains had already died with the last frost two days ago.

"...They'll take our paychecks from us if we don't sign up, Anton."

In spite of myself, I felt my attention sharpen at those words. Pulling out of myself, I quietly leaned closer to the open window without causing the rickety bed to creak.

I heard a deep sigh from my father. A beat. "Then we'll sign up. It's not like we have any choice. Besides, they can't be taking all of the refugees outside of he walls; it'd be suicide to keep track of them all."

Clothes rustled, and I heard some wood creak as Mother rose from a wooden bench. "...I understand."

"Thank you. I'll be working overtime tomorrow, so I'll swing by the registry after I come home. You'll take care of the kids and yourself?"

Silence, and then, "We're almost out of those salted prunes. Is there anything else we need to pick up before I sign for us and the children?"

I suppressed a hiss of frustration and pushed myself off of the bed with a thump.

The Retake Wall Maria Plan was a farce. Twenty percent, no, 200,000 people.

All dead within nine months.

My family and I would most definitely be one of the first on the chopping block. Simply being a refugee would easily lower my chances of survival from one in five to three in five.

The "volunteers" for the Plan would not be taken from the population at large; it was simple enough to see how it would go, with an outside perspective. The rich would stay safe in the inner districts, the residents of the cities would stay comfortable in their homes.

There was a very real chance that my family and I would die.

With a heavy heart I went through the walkway and went outside. The cool winter air beat against my face, and in spite of the extra layer I had put on earlier, I shivered.

"Next, please..."

The line stretched far behind us. Even though the announcement of the Retake Wall Maria Plan had been a few days ago, we hadn't had the chance to come down and do our 'civic duty' until now because of the threat to the crops. As it stood, we had walked into Trost some time ago, and had been waiting in a line that snaked through the streets and around several buildings. The atmosphere was cloying even though the crowd was outside and the air was cool, and a kind of tension rang through the people.

I grimly smiled.

A Garrison officer prowled past the assembly, giving short gestures to direct foot traffic. People streamed into the road, walking up to any of the available desks decorating both sides of the street.

I had heard that there were several other places in the town set up like this. I could only assume that it was as hectic there as it was here.

A group walked away from a desk, and my mother rushed to take their place before anyone else could cut in front of us.

The attendant was a thin man, with somewhat sallow skin and a drooping left eye. His clothes were tailored to the style of those living in the inner Wall. He barely glanced at us, dipping a freshly trimmed quill into an inkwell before speaking.

"Please state your name and..." He looked up at my mother's face and trailed off. His eyes widened, and he recoiled violently.

"Irma?"

Ink spattered across the otherwise immaculate wooden table.

Mother blinked. "Klaus?"

"Irma! I... You're alive?!"

"Keep your voice down!" Mother hissed, eyes darting to the side.

Abashed, the man coughed into his hand and hastily pulled out a handkerchief from a front pocket. "I... yes, Irma but... oh hell, Irma! I thought you were dead!"

Mother appeared genuinely puzzled at this before asking, "Why?"

"The newspaper had a report..." he whispered, rocking slightly back and forth before his eyed darted to each of us in turn. "A woman was murdered. She looked like you and the coroner gave us your name!"

Mother was silent for a moment.

"...They took my mother, Klaus."

The man stilled, and genuine sadness crashed over his face.

"I'm sorry... Are you well? Is your husband...?"

Mother shook herself and answered, "We both made it here alive. Anton is working on the housing program."

"That's very good news." He nervously fidgeted with his pen before his good eye darted towards me. "And this young lady?"

"My daughter."

He paused, looking wistful for a moment with eyes unfocused.

"...She has Anton's eyes. And your hair and face."

"Yes," Mother agreed.

Klaus appeared lost, wavering back and forth.

"...I... This..."

"Klaus?" Mother prompted.

Something in his countenance hardened as he came to a decision.

"I could lose my job for this."

"Klaus, no," Mother protested quietly, "I will do what I must for humanity-"

He held up a hand. "Stop, Irma. You saved my life; for my sake, you need to do exactly as I say."

Mother quieted as he handed her a blank form. She took the dry pen Klaus offered and pretended to sign the waiver.

"There have been a few refugees that have been excused from participating in this mess," he began. "You will go into the courtyard and look for a Garrison officer - we call him Bear. He has long brown hair pulled into a ponytail, a thick beard; he looks like his nickname. Tell him your paperwork went through, and that Klaus sends his regards."

Mother looked at him sadly. "I understand."

A few beats of silence. Klaus shifted uncomfortably.

"…Irma… About when I..."

"It's done." Mother shook her head, "I've already forgiven you for that."

The pause was long and very strained.

"...Tell your husband that I already took care of the paperwork for him – as long as he hasn't gone to sign anything yet-"

Mother nodded, silencing him. "I will. Thank you, Klaus."

We left the table. Fran was about to ask something, but I jabbed her hard in the side with my elbow.

She shut up.

"Anton!"

"Irma?"

Mother rushed into the bunkhouse breathlessly, a wide grin stretching the stress lines on her face. She looked so happy, like a great weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. Father looked down at her in bewilderment, the dirt and dust form the carpenter's shop sunk into the creases and scars on his face.

"They-" she breathlessly began, but stopped as she noticed where she was. Gently pushing away from him, she began to move towards one of the exits to the bunkhouse.

"I forgot myself. I need to talk to you outside. Children? Go and wash up."

Fran and I traded a glance before walking off to do as we were told. Mother grabbed Father's arm and pulled him out of the bunkhouse, towards an open field with very few people milling around. The door then closed, cutting off my view of their retreating backs. Rolling my shoulders, I grinned slightly as I grabbed the wash bucket from underneath the bunk before gently tugging on Fran's sleeve.

She rolled her eyes, walking to the other side of the bunkhouse and opening the door. We both strolled side-by-side down the open streets, dodging the occasional child that came rushing down the corner with the ease of the long practiced.

"Lisa?"

I blinked and turned to look at Fran.

"Hmm? What is it?"

She carefully looked around to make sure no one was paying attention before murmuring to me, "What did that man mean when he said that the Retake Wall Maria Plan was a mess?"

That... was one tough question. I cleared my throat and steadily moved towards the water line. Fran trailed behind me, waiting expectantly for her answer.

"He... How do I say this...?"

"He what?" she prompted, and I sighed.

"You know how the titans are outside?"

"Yeah...?"

"I can't say much right now, but... we almost got kicked out of the refugee camp."

Her eyes widened, and she hissed quietly in surprise, "Why would they do that?"

"Because there are too many people within Wall Rose..."

Her face was hurt, confused. "And it's because of us? The refugees?"

Shrugging, I replied, "A lot of people blame us for the shortage."

"It's not our fault!" she yelped, and a few people in front of us turned. I sheepishly waved them off.

"I know," I sighed as soon as they turned back around. "We can't change what's going to happen."

"So," she began with a frown, "then why don't we go help with retaking Wall Maria? The king said that he would send his soldiers to kill the titans in the wall, and let the rest of us barricade the hole..."

A shadow of a memory, of a large figure reaching down into a crowd as easily as a child does to a group of toys...

I shuddered.

"...Remember how tall that woman titan was?" I prompted and ignored the twisting in my gut, "The ten-meter class?"

"Yeah?" She asked, confused.

"Think for a second, how big of a hole would there have to be for that thing to get through? How much time it would take to completely block it?"

Her jaw clenched, and I could hear her teeth grind. "I-"

"Lisa! Fran!"

I motioned for her to wait and turned, curiosity giving way to alarm when I saw Mother rushing towards us. Father jogged slightly behind her, and I noted with worry that both were tense.

"Mom? Dad? What happened?" I asked, and Mother turned to look at me.

"Lisa, do you know where Klaus went after he registered us for Retake Wall Maria?"

I shook my head. "No, he only mentioned that he had to return to the city hall after he was done... What happened? Is everything alright?"

Mother shook her head, and Father's cheek jumped. They shared a long, significant glance and turned back to me.

"No. Lisa, I need to talk to Klaus."

I looked up at Father, surprised at the request. "Dad? What happened?"

He paused, seemingly gathering his thoughts for a moment, before answering, "There were some men taking signatures for the Retake Wall Maria Plan at my workplace."

A beat. The people around us in the line kept moving.

A breath.

The words hit me, and the blood drained from my face.

Oh, please no.

Father had a resigned look on his face as he continued with a heavy sigh, "I signed the waiver."

Did you know...?

Town criers were the way to give and receive major news for centuries. Low literacy rates and the high cost of writing or printing materials made a town crier a necessity. In Europe, most town criers used a noise making device to garner attention, like a hand bell, a drum, a hunting horn, or even a gong.

Thank you, everyone! Your continued support fills me with the warm fuzzies and prods my lazy muse into action!

Chapter 12  
*peeks out of fortress of solitude*

Um... Don't kill me?

*all 500 (!) of those on AlltheAce's follow list/ 440 (!) on her fave list gain evil glinty eyes and finger long knives, guns, pointy implements of torture, etc threateningly*

...Meep. *flings out an offering of 'New Chapter", and shuts the door as quickly as possible*

This chapter has been betaed by the amazing White Ink Penpal!

No.

"I signed the waiver."

No.

"Lisa - I need to talk to Klaus."

Why did it - No. No, it couldn't end like this. Not after everything we lost...

"Mom?"

"Lisa, do you know where Klaus could possibly be?"

I shook my head, "All I know is that most of the signature collectors are officials from Mitras. They might be lodging in an inn, or they could be staying at the dignitary wing in City Hall."

That was last night.

Mother and I had left the fields early that day. Of course, she had talked with the overseer and we had gotten our wages docked, but even though it was an inconvenience it was a small price to pay when we were faced with losing Dad. It was the early morning; we were on the well-worn dirt path towards Trost, relishing the cool of the morning.

And yet, in spite of the good weather, we were silent. What could we have said? Both of us understood exactly what had happened, and both of us were painfully aware of the situation. Especially what it meant for us as a family.

Dad, in his patriotism, had signed up for the Retake Wall Maria Plan - a decision that, in their ignorance, both he and mother had both agreed to do. But not that we all knew that the Plan wasn't what it originally seemed to be, we were facing the very real possibility that we would lose the head of our household.

In addition to the high chance that we would lose my father, we were still a refugee family and were barely scraping by even with all of our incomes combined. If Father wasn't here and we had another crop failure, we wouldn't have enough money to feed ourselves. During this time, in this strange land where archaic tradition met twenty-first century progressivism, men were invariably the breadwinners of the family. Mother had explained it to me once as this: men were more valued by employers, and as a consequence were paid more than women or children.

Now that I thought about it, the only 'equal-opportunity' employment within the Walls was the military...

"Lisa," Mother called, snapping me out of my reverie. I looked up at her and gave her a tight smile.

She sighed and hurried me through the gates into the city.

The streets were already full of hawkers and early-morning drifters. No one glanced our way as we eddied around the people huddled around stands or shops.

Even though the city hall was a few streets over we kept our heads down and our hands on our satchels to ward off pickpockets. We walked through another block without incident, and internally I sighed, grateful for the relative peace. We moved quickly, and reached the city hall within minutes. Two large oaken doors loomed above the steps, flanked by four Garrison officers standing at attention. Mother boldly made her way past the guards and through the old doors. I followed silently as she strode towards the reception desk. A moment later, and she quickly set to wrangle directions out of the young, male secretary for directions to Klaus.

While Mother worked her social judo, I took the opportunity to look around the room.

There were lamps lighting the halls that lacked the telltale jug on the bottom to hold oil, I noticed without surprise; gas lamps were a luxury reserved for only the oldest and most used public buildings in the cities. The floor was colored a dusty brown, from the oil and dirt that had seeped into the cracks of the wood years before. There were a few chairs pushed against the far wall. An old lady sat on one of them, resting her hands on her full skirt. She met my eyes and cracked an old smile that stretched the deep lines in her face. I gave a small bow of acknowledgement - it was only polite, after all - and she gave a dry chuckle and creaked forward into a shallow bow of her own.

Mother was still arguing with the secretary, so I quietly made my way towards the old lady and sat down next to her.

We remained there in silence for a moment, the steady lamp light shining off of the secretary's short brown hair, and watched as a few more people came in from outside. I looked over towards my left as the old lady shifted in her seat.

"She's got a fire, that one," the lady said in an old, raspy voice.

I let out a soft chuckle and agreed with a wordless hum. The smell of the room seemed to press down on us all, the earthy body odor emanating from the guards and the humidity of the closed room serving to keep it sufficiently claustrophobic.

"That young man told me to wait here." She spoke again, and gestured towards the secretary, "I need to talk to someone about my son. He needs some guarantee for money while I'm gone helping fix Wall Maria."

A beat of silence. My stomach clenched, and I looked at her with new eyes.

Her shoulders were stooped from age, and her tall nose was set between wide-set eyes. A strong jaw with loosened jowls from a lifetime working in the sun completed her face, ans her spotty hands shook even though they tightly grasped her floor length wool skirt.

She smiled again, showing cracked teeth, and nodded towards my mother. "She's almost done putting that poor boy through the wringer. I haven't seen someone as gifted with words for a long time, child. You're very fortunate."

"Yes," I agreed simply, watching as mother changed tactics and thanked the young secretary profusely, who blushed and waved her off.

We left, Mother with directions, and me with a reminder of just how screwed up this entire situation was. This government, killing innocents (at the very least, sending them off to their deaths), all in the name of 'preserving humanity'. All because of a lack of foresight.

I sighed heavily and kept walking.

It turned out that Klaus was rooming in an inn near the river. Thankfully he was still in his room, but when he answered the door he looked like he had just rolled out of bed. Mother was able to fill him in on the situation in a quiet voice once he had ushered us inside from the hallway.

As soon as she mentioned that father had already signed up before we could tell him anything, Klaus shook his head slowly. A hopeless expression had come over Mother's face before he said, "There was only so much I could so, so many children I could save. I tried to do what I could for your family but if I pull his name out now someone might notice what I've done."

"There's no way?"

"I... can try, but I don't know if it'll work or not."

"If there's anything-"

"Irma. I'm sorry."

Her mouth closed as she searched his face for any sign of giving. Finding only exhaustion in the tired lines of the man's face, she looked down and nodded.

Klaus grimaced, bunching the edge of his nightclothes in a nervous gesture. "If I find anything," he began, and Mother looked up, "I'll meet you in the bar beside the river - the Flying Boar. Friday, seven PM this week..."

Mother frowned, but nodded.

Klaus sighed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "You'd better get back to your husband."

I stood up and walked into the doorway to hold it open for Mom. She stood and brushed past me as she left, and I let the door swing shut behind me. Before it closed completely, I heard Klaus heave another sigh and settle down on the creaky spring bed. Then the door shut, and I couldn't hear anything else.

I expelled a breath as I swung the pickaxe into the ground, flinching away from the dust that exploded from the hard packed soil.

The sun beat down on the fields in spite of the cool air. Around me, other workers continued their daily assignments: weeding, watering, trapping, poisoning. Ahead of me, some overseers watched our progress as they sat on horses. The road leading to the field was full of traffic, with most of it coming from Mitras; a wagon of supplies here, then small bunches of rich and poor alike leaving for greener pastures there, accompanied by peddlers with carts of empty pegs and silent, dull wagons.

The heavy tool came down again and again. My muscles twinged, and I straightened up, popping my back and feeling my muscles relax.

Something caught my eye, and I looked sharply towards the administration buildings. In the distance, I could see a group of people emerge from the meeting area and walk towards the group I was working with. I turned back to my work, unconcerned. Sometimes, if rarely, groups would be temporarily be reassigned to the fields if it was necessary. Considering that the committee that oversaw the landfill farms had just told us to break new ground, the group I saw would help the work go that much faster.

The heavy pick rose, then fell down in a dull splash of dust.

Work had started at six o'clock sharp that morning. Looking at the shadows cast my my fellow workers, I could guess that around an hour had passed, so the changeover must have been done that morning. Strange. Usually they would at least give everyone a heads-up before they were reassigned...

Still, not my problem.

As the group neared, some talked with the overseers and set to assigning jobs. Some immediately set to digging out the furrows some of us had dug, turning over the broken ground and making it usable for grains, while others conversed quietly amongst themselves, exchanging picks with hoes or shovels and setting to work. I was joined by a few others, and eventually worked my way to the other end of the field.

Time passed, the sun reached it's peak, and it became too hot to work outside. The midday meal bell, muffled by the distance and humidity, rang loudly enough that everyone could hear over the din of scraping dirt.

We each left what we had been working on and made our way slowly to the mess halls. I meandered through the group and eventually found Fran. She gave me a tired smile, I gave one in return, and we fell in step with the group making its way towards the food store for our rations for the day.

A scrape came from behind me, and I turned to see a blond walking towards me. My eyebrows climbed in surprise as I recognized the boy as Armin, but I met his eyes and gave him a nod of acknowledgement as he approached.

He smiled in greeting as he looked at both of us. "Lisa, hi there."

"Armin. Good to see you." I smiled in return, unsure of what to do.

"Same. Is this a friend of yours?"

I shrugged. "More of a sister. Fran, this is Armin. I met him a few days ago on the way to get food."

Fran thought for a moment and then grinned, "I remember you. You're the one that almost dropped a sack of seed on me. You made me drop my shovel."

Armin blushed in embarrassment and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Ah, sorry about that..."

She shrugged it off. "No harm, no foul."

I cleared my throat, getting both of their attention. "So what's going on?"

Armin frowned as he turned and met my eyes. "I was wondering if you heard the news... An official was found dead this morning."

My eyebrows climbed in surprise, but I shook my head no. Armin sighed, shrugged and inclined his head toward the city. "It was one of the people handling the paperwork for the volunteer force going to Maria. The capital might be sending more soldiers to keep the peace if it was murder."

"Does anyone know who it was?" I asked, neutrally.

"Some guy." Armin shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. "Dunno his name, I was wondering if you knew anything about it. I think it started with a K? Klaws?"

"Klaus? I hope it's not him."

Armin frowned. "You know him?"

"...He knew my mom..." I trailed off, then cleared my throat. "Would someone really be that stupid? Murdering an official?"

"The coroner said it was a gunshot wound."

I grimaced. "That... Damn. That's really bad. And they're sending more Military Police?"

Armin shrugged. "Probably. It seems really likely at this point."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

Our conversation trailed off as we kept walking. The crowd was thinning out as more people filtered into the mess halls scattered across the refugee camp. I shrugged and pointed towards a nearby line, and we all made our way towards the building.

Armin cleared his throat. "So, are you two going to join the Retake Maria plan?"

Fran was about to answer, but I tapped her arm and spoke instead, "No, they wouldn't accept us for some reason. What about you?"

"I'm not going, but my grandfather is."

"Which wave is he going with?"

"The third, I think."

My stomach turned, and the smell of food wafting through the air soured. That old lady I had run into flickered across my mind's eye and I sighed.

"Ah well. I guess we should part ways here. Do you have any friends hanging around?"

"Yeah, they said they would meet me in the other kitchen. Take care."

"You too."

He disappeared into the crowd, and Fran and I walked into the line.

"I wonder if it was really Klaus that got killed..." Fran mused as we grabbed our tins.

I shrugged. "It might not be him. Klaus is an uncommon name, but a lot of high-class people have it."

With that, we both fell into silence and waited for our turn at the food.

At the end of the week Mother went to town. Father went with her, but they promised me and Fran that they should be back by nine or so. We had already cleaned the dust and sweat of the fields off of us before we came back to the bunks. After night fell, I found myself searching for my supply of baking soda while Fran lounged on her mattress.

The rumor mill was an interesting thing. First, the story that got passed around was that an official got killed, with a name ranging from Marley to Richard. Then the story somehow evolved into an outlandish story of a rebellion perpetrating assassinations of the upper class, or something. I had no idea how true it was, but I was just thankful that I wasn't part of it.

Fran shut the pages of her book and carefully climbed down the ladder. She walked close to the chest and carefully placed the book inside. I looked over her shoulder, seeing the mess of papers, belongings, and necessities inside the chest. A small glass jar with white powder caught my eye.

"Can you pass me the baking soda?"

She wordlessly plucked the jar and handed it to me. "Thanks," I mumbled, rummaging in my pack for the toothbrush I made so long ago. I found it and lifted it up to the light, inspecting the bristles I had painstakingly inserted and trimmed into the holed on the head of the small metal bar.

I grabbed the small canteen I had left hanging on the bedpost, dumped about a teaspoon of the powder on my tongue, and went to the rear entrance of the bunkhouse. No one was outside, so I let the door swing shut behind me with an empty clack.

There was a small covered area next to the outhouses that I could see from the bunks. Even though it stank to high heaven out there, it was one of the few places I could go that offered a modicum of privacy. There was an awning ahead and I headed towards it, but stopped as I heard the door to the bunkhouse opening behind me. I heard short, familiar footsteps running behind me, and waited as Fran caught up to me.

"You know Mom doesn't want us going out alone."

"You looked busy," I protested, but Fran just shrugged and ducked next to me.

"I need to brush my teeth too. Can I have some water?" she asked, holding out a small washcloth with some powder already on it. "I didn't pick a twig earlier," she responded to my questioning look.

Shrugging, I did as she asked, and we ducked under the awning next to the outhouse. There was a ditch in the corner that we could spit into, thankfully, and it didn't seem like anyone had used it before us. We rushed through our routine.

I heard some heavy steps outside, and quickly rinsed with another small swig and spat out the gritty paste the powder had dissolved into. Fran did the same a moment later, and we both shoved our supplies into the pockets on our skirts. A door creaked open and shut, and by the time I poked my head outside the street was empty. I shrugged, assuming that the person I had heard went into the outhouse, and started to walk back to the bunkhouse.

A scrape came from behind me, and I turned just as Fran cried out in surprise. A man with a thick, unkempt beard had wrapped his hand around her upper arm.

I jumped forward to yank her away, but froze as I was confronted with his aggressive stance. The overwhelming urge to run warred against the instinct of get her away from there, and for a millisecond I hesitated. Then the man blinked, the moment was over, and he began to drag Fran backwards.

Not. Happening.

With a snarl I bolted forwards faster than I had thought possible. Ducking under Fran's flailing arm, I latched onto the man's broad forearm with all of my strength. My added weight drew him up short, but he quickly recovered and hauled us both with him as he took a step backwards. I stumbled, but I saw a flash of motion as Fran's free arm struck almost blindingly fast, embedding something into the man's forearm.

He and I stared at the knife buried into his arm in disbelief as he he dazedly switched his grip to his other hand. Then blood welled from the wound just as the shock hit him, and he staggered another two steps backwards with a shout of pain.

Fran yelped as his grip tightened, and I quickly pulled out my whittling knife. Fran had already begun to kick and scream at the man, but she dropped to the ground limply just as I stabbed the whittling knife forward. A millisecond later a deep gouge opened across the back of the Man's hand and I felt a jarring sensation as the blade bit through thin flesh and hit bone. Shocked that I actually managed to hit him, I jerked the knife away. His tendons failed and his grip faltered, involuntarily releasing Fran to crash into me. I was suddenly sent tumbling backwards onto the ground as my momentum completely reversed.

I landed poorly, the hand I had curled around the whittling knife in a death grip went under my back and crunched painfully against the ground. Dirt and gravel dug into my knuckles, arm, and shoulder. I looked up and watched as the man jerked away from me and cradled his ruined hand against his chest. Blood dripped from both appendages as he recovered and stumbled towards us, an ugly snarl twisting his features.

"You stabbed me! You little pieces of shit!"

He tried to reach forward with the hand that hadn't been sliced open, but I had already grabbed sand and gravel with my free hand and flung it into the man's eyes. He flinched backwards again with a yell.

Fran shrieked my name. At the edges of my vision, I could see that other people had been attracted by the commotion and were beginning to run towards us. We scrambled upright and bolted away from the man as other refugees came forward to take the man down.

"Get back here!" the man shouted and struggled as four or five men dragged him off of his feet.

"Suck it, asshat!" Fran called back as grabbed her free arm and whipped us around the corner.

The adrenaline rush gave our feet wings; twenty seconds later and we had already reached the end of the street. Gasping for breath, both of us turned another corner and backtracked towards our bunkhouse.

Mother and Father had just left the building to look for us by the time we reached the bunks. Fran was sobbing and I was still hissing in painful breaths as we stumbled towards them. The next few minutes were a blur, with me stuttering out the story, Fran crying, Father holding Fran, and Mother cleaning out my steaming hand and arm with the water from the canteen still hanging around my neck. Distantly, I hoped that she could get all the gravel and dirt out before the wound sealed shut.

I glanced up, and for a moment, caught the helpless anger that burned in Father's eyes as he locked gazes with Mother.

"I can't do this, Irma..."

The deep rumble of my father's voice gently roused me from the doze I had fallen into.

Mother's high voice sighed in response, and cloth rustled. "There's no legal way for you to-"

"I know," he gently cut her off, and she grew quiet.

A sigh. "I can't stand by and let my daughter and ward get attacked like this while I'm gone. And I worry about you. All the time..."

"I can be sure to not let them out of my sight, and-"

"And after I leave? Klaus wasn't there Irma- someone killed him."

"We don't know that for sure, Anton."

"The timing is too suspicious; with what he had told us earlier, and with him moving the names on the volunteer lists..."

"I know."

Mother shifted again as they both fell silent. A minute passed, mother hmmed, and Father grunted questioningly.

"There might be a way..." She began, and father grunted in response.

"Not here. We'll have to sleep on it." The cloth scraped against the straw stuffed mattress. "Goodnight, dear."

"Sweet dreams, love."

They both fell silent, and I fell into a light doze.

Did you know...?

In America in the 1850's, farmers made up of more than half of the united states workforce. Improvements in technology, such as horse-drawn harvesters, 'riding plows,' grain winnowers, and similar machinery made the labor-intensive process of farming more efficient and less costly. the resulting wave of freshly unemployed individuals moved back to the eastern states, where factories took in the eager workforce. The 'gilded age' began, and capitalism reigned supreme. Eventually, individuals like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan rose to take advantage of the system, giving rise to the monopolies and to the current anti-trust laws that allow for competition.

So... yeah. Sorry about the long wait - crap pretty much happened, and life decided to pop up like Freddie Fazebear and say "Hi! I'mma give you a cruddy start of the school semester!"

But I am done screaming in fright, that little phase of my life is passed, and I am BACK in action, baby!

Let's see how this arc progresses - my little hiatus has given me more than a few ideas.

I just want to thank you all who faved and followed this fic while I was gone. In all actuality, my muse DID get jumpstarted by a wonderful reviewer, so I shower you with cookies and milk (or, if you're gluten-free and lactose intolerant, oat flour cookies and almond milk)! Seriously, what is up with the gluten-free option? I'm seeing it EVERYWHERE now!

Anyhow, see you all with the next chapter! Reviews are love!

Chapter 13  
*drops new chapter on the ground and hides inside fortress of solitude*

Also, shout-out to any and all anon reviewers - if you send me a PM, I'd be glad to discuss your questions with you. I'm not gonna try to muddle up the chapter with too-long author's notes; as long as I'm regularly logging into fanfiction I usually take the time to respond to my signed reviews and PMs.

*ducks under thrown knives*

Hey, that last three-month hiatus doesn't count!

Enjoy this 5k word monster. Cheers!

Betaed by One Mysterious Potato and the awesome White Ink Penpal!

It turned out that the rumor was true: the king did send a platoon of military police to Trost in part because of the murder of Klaus. Apparently, their official reason was "To gather evidence in regards to the demise of a Crown associate," but the real reason... Well, it was because the Utopia District had staged a rebellion last month. The news came with the supplies guarded by additional Garrison and Military Police reinforcements - I was surprised that we hadn't heard a peep about it from the traders.

It turned out that the northern districts had not been able to produce anything of substance before winter fell, and that the Utopia District's allotted food supplies had been on the verge of running out for months. A lot of people had died from the famine - none of the people I talked to knew the real death toll, and the officials that could weren't talking.

This would have been another tragic sidenote in a parade of disasters, but Utopia was the city that held most of the food supplies within the Walls.

With the fall of Maria and the loss of all resources outside of Rose, a faction of desperate and starving Utopia workers had banded together to march on and distribute the food stores held by the mayor. They had gathered a crowd, and the protestors resisted the Garrison's moderately peaceful efforts to quell the growing riot. Things had gotten so out of hand that an eighth of the city burned before the fires had been put out. As far as anyone knew, the death toll had been at least 207, and a little over one hundred were missing.

Besides that, two silos full of grain had been ruined by fire and exposure.

Trost was uneasy and tense for a few days after the news had spread, especially with the increased military presence, but time passed and nothing happened. The only thing that changed in my own life was that Fran and I had to be within eyeshot of one of my parents at all times. I was fine with this - Father was tall enough to be imposing, and Mother knew enough about people in general to keep us in the crowds and away from the less savory places. Not that I couldn't do that by myself, but the presence of an adult would be a deterrent to any of the more... unsavory actions of people, and helped give us a little more confidence when walking outside.

In regards to the incident we had suffered a few days ago... Fran had been shaken, but since nothing really had come from the run-in with the man other than a large bruise around her forearm, she quickly bounced back to her cheerful self.

And if she had become slightly warier of strangers and old men, well, no one really mentioned it.

Today was the first day of the weekend, and Mother had insisted that we go to town for some bread and soap.

We pushed through the streets, winding our way towards the marketplace as unobtrusively as possible. It wasn't pleasant; carts jangled, the crowds stank in the unseasonably warm weather, the air was bereft of breezes, and there were an uncommon amount of pickpockets roaming the area. Though I didn't feel like I was melting, it was hot enough that if I did anything more strenuous than a light jog I would start to overheat. Fran idly fanned herself with an old folded piece of clean butcher's paper she had salvaged a while back.

A rubbish heap was piled off in an alley, and I wrinkled my nose at the stench of rotting trash and horse manure as we approached. Some dirt flew up, and a couple of young children, probably all younger than seven or so, scurried around the pile, arms full of filthy pebbles and broken wood and metal. They cut us off in their hurry to run away, and we all stopped as they bolted past us.

Father heaved a deep sigh and led us towards the marketplace.

Buying our supplies took an unusually short time; we soon found ourselves walking towards the area of town generally used by tradesmen and high-end store owners.

"What are we doing here, Irma?" Father asked quietly as we passed a small group of well dressed ladies. I accidentally made eye contact with a brunette wearing a dress and a tight corset, and she uncomfortably looked away, covering her face with a fan. I blinked in surprise, and looked at Mother.

She missed the byplay, but hummed and tsked. "I need to talk to an old acquaintance. Girls?"

We both looked over at her, Fran jerking guiltily away from staring openly at the group of wealthy women outside of the tailor shop.

"Your father and I have some business we need to take care of," she began as we walked up to a small general store. In the window there were some pieces of calico on display, and a jar of tall sweet sticks stood enticingly on the sill. Quickly, Mother produced twenty coppers and handed each of us ten.

I curiously fingered the small amount of money in my hand, then looked back up at Mom in disbelief. Fran was carefully counting out her change; I could hear her muttering numbers under her breath as she clinked the coins together.

This was enough money to buy us food for a day. Why-

Mother met my eyes and smiled, her slightly tanned face creasing into unfamiliar wrinkles. She gently placed her hand on my shoulder, then stepped back and nudged me forward. I swallowed and turned towards the store, hearing Mother and Father leave us there and walk across the street.

Fran looked at the candy in the window, gave a blinding smile, and rushed into the store. I turned around, listening to the bell in the door tinkle, and watched as my parents walked into a print shop, of all places. Fran's laugh rang from the building just before the door closed completely behind her, and I hurried to follow my adopted sibling.

The light fell through the warped glass of the window, creating strange, uneven patterns on the old, clean floor of the shop. Fran had already darted towards the front counter, where the owner had already retrieved a variety of candy from the back and was displaying it on the counter that was just barely too high for Fran to comfortably look down on. She danced on her tiptoes, staring in awe at the deep red stain of cinnamon sticks before jumping to the green peppermint ones.

"How much?" I asked before I reached the counter. The man, somewhat tall but not unusually so, met my eyes with his own hazel gaze.

"Five copper," he said shortly and turned to the shelves behind him, lifting a jar with small multicolored candy to place down on the counter. Wincing at the price, I glanced over to the wall where a whole host of posters and advertisements coated the wall. I walked over to inspect the myriad of advertisements and propaganda, but my eye was caught by a small sheet of half-folded paper held against the wallpaper with a tack.

Reaching forward with a finger, I pushed the covering half of the paper flat against the wall and skimmed the poster.

"The Almanac of the Year of Humanity 846" it proclaimed, and I skimmed through the forecast for the season. If we were fortunate, it declared, we should have at least one good rainstorm in the dead of winter...

"Lisa!" Fran quietly called to me, "You gotta come see this!"

Reluctantly pulling away from the page, I looked over my shoulder and saw Fran holding a piece of candy up to the light and giggling at the colors it made against the counter. Smiling at the sight, I looked up to the man behind the counter and met his eyes.

"Do you have any mint seeds?" I asked as I walked towards him. The man shrugged and picked up the candy jar, leaving a small pile of hard sweets for us to inspect while he placed the glass holder on a shelf across from me and Fran. He quickly looked around, before blinking, as if remembering something, and walked to the back of the store.

Fran was twirling a small stick between her fingers. I hummed. "Don't forget you'll have to brush your teeth later," I reminded Fran idly as I picked up a peppermint candy stick. She snorted and picked up a tan caramelized candy.

Footsteps echoed from behind the store, and the tall man laid a small bag of mint seeds on the counter.

"If you want the entire thing it'll cost you eight coppers."

I nodded and handed him the coins, slipping the last two into my pocket. Fran rolled her eyes and took two colorful twirled candy sticks.

We both stayed in the store until Mother and Father came to retrieve us ten or so minutes later. They both looked tired, but we left the shop with little fanfare other than a nod and a small "thank-you" to the storekeeper.

"Please come back soon!" he called after us. Mother gave a small bow in gratitude and the door shut.

Life kept going.

Though I was curious about what they had bought or done while over at that print shop, Mother and Father had both remained tight lipped about it. As time went on, they both seemed to have forgotten about the entire affair, and I, not wanting to push the issue in lieu of enjoying as much time with Father as I could, didn't ask about it.

Father was cheerful about the whole thing, at least. And I must admit that his upbeat personality was infectious.

Winter deepened, but it didn't snow often in Trost. Usually the air stayed frigid and kept water pooling on the ground frozen. Puddles of any standing water were iced solid; oftentimes the water spigots had to be defrosted before the refugees could use them. Ice traces thin tendrils across the windows and coated the went on as normal, if more focused on cleaning, repairing, and moving stock in preparation for the next growing season. Even though the short days dragged on, we were already almost one and a half months past the winter solstice.

The date gave most of us hope, but the city suffered as the weather turned absolutely frigid.

I was cheerfully radiating heat and was the perfect picture of health; the city, not so much.

Someone coughed wetly outside. Below me, I could hear Fran sniff her mildly runny nose and shift in her blankets. A winter cold had spread rapidly through the town; in fact, Fran had come down with it a week ago. Thankfully she had bounced back with just a cough, but...

Mom... Untouchable mom, had been hit much harder than Fran. She'd been laid up in bed for the past five days.

Fran wasn't taking it well. She had appointed herself as caretaker for mom, and sometimes I had to pull her away from the bedside to get her food. Father had called the doctor when she had shown no signs of getting better by the third day. Mother was so weak that she couldn't be moved, but by some miracle we were able to catch the doctor in the middle of a lull. He had arrived at our bunkhouse on the fourth day.

The doctor was a thin middle-aged man with thinning grey hair and bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. He came to the shelter by mid-morning, and had immediately made his way towards my mother after Father led him to her.

He had quickly taken her temperature with a small mercury thermometer and pulled out an archaic stethoscope. After listening intently to Mother's breathing through its single earpiece, he pulled the device from his ear and put his tools away.

Father shifted nervously against the wall as the doctor wrote some notes onto his clipboard. The doctor cleared his throat and placed the small fountain pen he was using into his front coat pocket, before standing and facing Father.

"Her blood pressure is stable, if a bit low for a woman of her size. I hear fluid in her lungs. How long ago did she start coughing?"

"Two days. Right after the fever started."

The doctor wearily sighed. "You're lucky that she's such a strong woman. She isn't nearly as bad off as some."

"But will she get better?"

"From what you told me earlier, she's almost over the worst of it. Send for me if her temperature increases again, or if it hasn't broken by tomorrow."

Fran's quiet voice broke into the conversation, "Is there anything we can do?"

The doctor shrugged, his thin shoulders rising and falling slightly. "Just wait. Usually I would recommend chicken soup, and lemon and honey in hot tea for the cough but with the shortage..."

"I understand," Father said with a sigh. "Thank you for your time."

The doctor nodded and left. His footsteps thudded against the wood floor, then I heard the door creak as it opened. The swell of voices outside grew momentarily louder before the door swung shut.

The good news was that Mother did eventually get better, however the sickness had settled in her lungs and she was still recovering. As it was now, she was barely able to work outside in the damp and the cold without descending into a coughing fit that would leave her breathless, doubled over, and heaving. My chest constricted in sympathy whenever I heard her cough. Shaking myself out of my reverie, I picked up the arms of the wheelbarrow and trundled towards the manure pile.

A line of people with their own wheelbarrows and buckets stretched out into the street, waiting for their turn with the workers that were piling manure into the carriers. I settled behind them to wait for my turn.

It had been a couple months since then; spring was just around the corner. Fortunately for Trost nothing had really happened after the soldiers came - though there was an increase in refugees and consequently an increase in crime, it never developed into the riotous conditions that the townspeople feared the situation would become. Long story short, the extra military presence wasn't needed so they had been shipped out to the more unstable Klorva District a week ago.

Some were still holding their breath for an outbreak of crime, but for the most part things were peaceful.

The line dropped away in front of me, and I stepped forward to get the wheelbarrow filled. A trip to the fields and back took a few minutes, but it was enough for me to spot a crowd that had formed while I was gone. Curious, I set down the wheelbarrow and drew closer, but when I heard the first angry shouts I slowed down.

"That's impossible! We can't live on this!" a man argued, and at least three other people almost immediately echoed the cry. In the middle of the seething mass of people, a man in formal clothes stood elevated over the others. He was frantically calling for quiet, but someone yelled and more people started to argue and a shouting match broke out. I almost backed away, but I stopped when I nearly jostled into a young boy around my age, with brown hair and light colored eyes.

"What's going on?" I shouted over the noise.

He looked back at me and blinked, then scowled and angrily gestured toward the official, "They're cutting our food rations!"

"What?!" I hissed, but the kid had already turned away and pushed through the crowd, yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Wait! Come back!"

That... wasn't me.

My eyes widened in shock. Armin and a tallish girl with black hair shoved through the people, barreled past me, and dove into the crowd. I lost sight of them as they pushed their way to the front. I looked at the official, and saw a small jacketed arm reach up and yank the man's leg off of his podium. The crowd parted slightly, and through the crack I could barely see Armin and the black-haired girl prying the other boy away from his death grip on the man's pants.

The man stood and looked down in anger at the boy that pulled him down. He began to lift his hand, but someone stepped in front of me and blocked the scene from view. Still, I could see the man's fist rise above the heads of the people around me, hesitate a moment, and drop with the speed of a striking snake. A young girl yelled in the center of the crowd as the man repeated the motion, hitting the young boy again.

I was already shoving through the crowd. As I slid past the last few people, I could see where the fracas saw that the girl had latched onto the official's arm, with her other arm raised. A second later, and I realized that she was holding a knife.

Running forward, I grabbed the closest arm on the boy and the girl and yanked backwards towards the crowd with all my strength. They both weren't expecting the sudden pull and went flying off of their feet, and the boy lost his grip on the man's leg. I heard something clatter, and just before I lost my balance I saw that the girl had lost her grip on the knife. Off-balance from the sudden weight shift, I bodily rammed into the arm of an adult and completely lost my footing. Above me, I heard the official fall off the soapbox and scramble away.

Armin shouted, but what he said was lost to the crowd.

Grimacing, I quickly glanced around and accidentally met the cold glare of the black-haired girl. Looking away, I found where the knife had fallen and extracted myself from the tangle of limbs we had fallen into. After kicking the knife past the podium, I staggered a few steps before bolted for a gap that had barely opened.

The shouting intensified, fists flew over my head, and all around me I heard the shouting of Garrison soldiers. I tore free from the chaos and sped away from there like the hounds of hell were at my heels.

"...So, that's what the uproar was about?" Mother asked, after we had returned to the bunkhouses.

There were few people around; mostly small families trying to stay safe and out of the growing mess outside. I could hear angry shouting coming from the administration office, but Military Police and Garrison officers had long since arrived and suppressed the rowdy crowd.

I shrugged and turned to face her, "Part of it. Do you know anything else about them cutting rations?"

"Wages, too."

My jaw dropped, and Mother nodded. I shook my head. "They're doing that now? Of all times? They can't!"

"Lisa..." She sighed.

"Why?"

"The funds have run out. We would have been fine, but with the riots in the Utopia district, and the losses of supplies..."

Blinking, I drummed my fingers against my folded arm. "Our–– well, Trost's food was stored up there too? I thought Trost recieved food directly from the capital."

"No, the caravans have to go through the capital. The dry and cold mountains in the winter kept the weevils and mold down. Besides, the crown lowered taxes to caravans trading grains there."

"How low are we talking about?"

Mother gave a small hum. "Enough to make it appealing even though the way to Utopia is practically a mountain trail."

"And if everything was stored up there... That's a lot of money that the ruling class gave up for their coffers. What about the farmers in Utopia? Wouldn't they be worried about the low prices they'd have to sell their crops for, if imported food wasn't expensive to buy?"

"Utopia and her merchants received a stipend."

That made sense. The closed system of the Walls made it easy to do something like that. Still... "There had to have had other stores, in the capital, or another city..."

"All of the produce was stored in the outer walls."

"That's...' My thoughts ground to a halt as I processed what she said. "What?"

Mother continued, unhurried, "The Walls haven't been breached in living memory, and no one knows about the Outside. It's completely sensible to store grains and supplies out where there's space and enough people to care for it."

I, still flat-footed at this revelation, was trying to search for a reason why. "But... All of the land in here..."

"The system that we had was already in place and it would have cost too much to move the grains into the inner walls. Again, the Walls have never been breached before, it was safe to live out there."

Frowning, I looked up at the ceiling of the bunkhouse. "It's still stupid."

"Then it seems that the leadership hasn't been gifted with the innocence and paranoia that you somehow have developed," she sarcastically remarked, and I blushed.

"Sorry."

"No harm, but hold your tongue when in public. Criticizing what has happened will do more harm than good at this point. If we're fortunate, we may even see our home again when this all is over."

I sighed, "Yes Mom."

The bed beckoned my sore body with its welcoming pseudo-comfort. With a groan, I fell onto the blankets and inhaled the earthy smell. I'd have to change the straw soon, but for now relaxing my exhausted legs was the priority. Running across a full field, then to the refugee camp and back had a tendency to exhaust someone.

Unbidden, my day began to play its way past my eyes as I tried to doze. With a groan, I remembered the near riot that the square had dissolved into.

Then something clicked about the kids I had seen there. My eyes snapped open.

"Oh."

A moment later, I had my journals open and was rifling through them, looking for the descriptions I had written years ago about the three main characters.

Eren; brown hair, light 'teal' or 'grey' eyes. Infamous for being headstrong. 'Suicidal bastard'. Mikasa, 'Oriental,' dark long hair until training corps. 'Prodigy'. Cool headed unless adopted brother threatened. Armin, short, blonde hair, blue eyes. Physically weak, scarily intelligent. All three attached at the hip.

Over the years, I had almost forgotten what Eastern Asian eyes looked like.

"Well, crap."

I had stopped Mikasa from stabbing an official. Mikasa. And I had talked to Eren. I gritted my teeth, shoved the journal back in its place in the chest, and flopped down on my bunk, arm flung over my eyes.

So much for staying the hell away from the terrible trio. Hopefully they would forget about the weird black-haired girl - I'd have to make sure to make myself scarce whenever I saw any of them around. Hopefully they wouldn't remember me and this would all go away... One year, and they would go into the Training Corps if everything went well. They'd be out of my hair, and I wouldn't have to worry about running into them.

I drifted off to sleep with half-formed evasion plans dancing past my mind's eye.

Days passed.

While the near-riot had made the rounds, thankfully the attempted stabbing hadn't. Still, the town was on edge once again. The Garrison patrolled the streets more regularly, the Military Police were sticking their noses into everyone's business more so than usual, and fights between the Military Police and the local gangs had broken out in the red light districts.

On the other end of the spectrum, most of the poor, especially the refugees, were focused on stockpiling what little income they had in preparation for the inflation practically guaranteed by the announcement.

We all were worried, but with Mother in an administrative position, we had a small bit of wiggle room with our combined salaries. At it was, that small concession became moot once inflation hit the city. Grain prices soared, animals were slaughtered for food and utility as it became too expensive to feed them, and the people waited for supplies that wouldn't come.

Time went on.

Two months continued in this manner. Fran lost weight, and so did I; my cheeks began to jut out more prominently as the gradual starvation conditions and heavy work took its toll on our growing bodies. There was no extra food to go around; once Father had to wait in a line for half a day, returning with a black eye and a sheepish grin. He handed us the two old bread rolls he had managed to procure, then went to the crate to dig out a few of the small non perishables that we had hoarded.

"There's more being provided tomorrow..." he muttered, grabbing a small rag and wetting it with some water from my canteen, "We can get our own supplies until the harvest."

"How?" Fran scoffed, her small bread loaf half-eaten. "With that food? Foraging? Like everyone else and their mother?"

"Fran," I interrupted her with a frown.

She looked over at me with a raised eyebrow and a grim smile. "It's the truth, Lisa."

Mother interrupted our budding argument with the practiced ease of a politician. "Girls, stop. Lisa, check on the laundry. Fran, go fill up the water bucket."

"Yes Mom."

Fran heaved a big sigh and scuffed her foot against the ground. "Yes ma'am."

We hurried to leave the bunkhouse, scrambling over each other with knobby knees and thin elbows. Just after the door swung shut behind us, we both looked at each other, stuck our tongues out at the same time, and laughed. There weren't that many people running around, but it was busy enough that the place didn't look like a ghost town. We parted ways once we came to the water pump. Fran slid into the ever-present line with a practiced air, and I walked towards the houses just across the street.

The laundromat was a cheap provider of linen cleaning services that was a godsend to the overworked refugees. Usually getting our clothes cleaned cost a mere two coppers per basketful, which was practically a steal if they didn't mix up the laundry. Even though mother usually did the laundry for us, she had noticed that her white frocks had been turning greyer over the bast three months, and decided it was time that they be washed with bleach.

I pushed open the door, and met the eyes of the lady standing behind the far counter. She smiled and beckoned me forward, and I walked up and showed her the small wooden token with our assigned number on it. She quickly took it and, after checking in her ledger that we had indeed paid for the services, left to gather the basket that our clothes were kept in.

The handleless door swung shut behind her, and I sighed as I was left alone in the room. I was just about to look for a chair to sit on when a stack of printed paper on the desk caught my eye.

The royal seal was stamped across the top in black ink, and just underneath it were words declaring that "RETAKE WALL MARIA PLAN RESCHEDULED"

Curious, I skimmed past the first few paragraphs and stopped at the end. I leaned against the counter and read to myself, "The king has seen the state of the cities, and has decreed that the plan shall take place, not in the winter of the Year 846, but in the fall..."

Did you know...?

During the Great Depression, Roosevelt saw that the economy needed to be stimulated by correcting the amount of food that was available. As part of Roosevelt's now-famous New Deal, farmers were approached and given a stipend in exchange for planting fewer crops. Sometimes, farmers even had to burn crops (which were oftentimes shipped abroad and not consumed in the United States) to meet the requirements for the stipend, which generated a lot of complaints from jobless individuals and families struggling to make a living.

Less supply = more demand, and more demand = higher prices.

Higher prices = more revenue, and more revenue = more jobs.

World War Two also helped in stimulating the economy, but that's another story for another time.

So yeah. End of chapter 13. I just want to thank everyone for their continued support - favs, follows, reviews, even everyone who just pops in and reads this - you guys and gals are the best!

Until next time!


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